For example, it seemed that if you asked Carl Gustaf a question to which the normal answer would have been 'yes' or 'of course', he, instead of contenting himself with 'ja', would often say 'sicher', which means 'positively, certainly', and he would say it with a jaunty air, and a little stab of his right fore-finger. Again, in listening to people, he would look past them, giving tiny occasional nods of his head and making almost inaudible grunts of agreement. Lots of people do this, but I don't happen to be one of them, so I had to practise until I found myself doing it almost without thinking.
And he had a quick, brisk laugh, showing his teeth—I worked at that until my throat smarted and my jaws ached. But this was easy compared with the contortions I went through in trying to mimic his trick of raising one eyebrow by itself; I came near to setting up a permanent twitch in one cheek, and eventually they decided to let it be, and hope that no one noticed that my eyebrows perversely worked together.
Fortunately, Carl Gustaf was a cheerful, easy-going chap, much as I am myself, but I had to work hard to try to correct the sulky look I get when Pm out of sorts, and my habit of glowering and sticking out my lower lip. This ray of Danish sunshine didn't glower, apparently; when he was in the dumps he showed it with an angry frown, so of course I had to knit my brows until they ached.
How well I learned my lessons you may judge when I tell you that to this day I have his trick of rubbing one hand across the back of the other (when thinking deeply), and that I entirely lost my own habit of scratching my backside (when puzzled). Royalty—I have Bersonin's solemn word for it—never claw at their arses to assist thought.
Now the result of all this, day after day, and of the unbroken pretence that my captors kept up, was remarkable and sometimes even frightening. I suppose I'm a good actor, to begin with—after all, when you've been shamming all your life, as I have, it must come pretty natural—but there were times when I forgot that I was acting at all, and began to half-believe that I was Carl Gustaf. I might be practising before the long cheval glass, with Rudi and Bersonin watching and criticising, and I would see this baldheaded young fellow in the green hussar rig flashing his smile and stabbing his forefinger, and think to myself, 'Aye, that's me'—and then my mind would try to recapture the picture of the dark, damn-you-me-lad-looking fellow with the curly hair and whiskers—and I would discover that I couldn't do it. That was when I found it frightening—when I had forgotten what my old self looked like.
Mind you, my character didn't change; these flashes were only momentary. But I certainly began to believe that we would carry off the imposture, and the terror that I had originally felt about it subsided to a mere craven apprehension of what the end of it all might be—when payday came and the real Carl Gustaf had come back into his own,
However, that was in the future, and in the meantime I was floating with the tide, as is my habit, and letting my puppethandlers think that butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. For their part, they seemed to be delighted with my progress, and one day, about three weeks after I had come to Schonhausen, on an evening when Bismarck joined the rest of us at supper, I did something which convinced Rudi and Bersonin that the first round was won at least.
We were sitting down to table, myself at the head, as usual, and Bismarck plumped down in his chair before I did. Now I was so used by this time to being seated first that I simply stared at him, more in curiosity, I imagine, than anything else; and he, catching my glance, actually began to get to his feet. Rudi, who missed nothing, couldn't repress a chuckle and a delighted slap of his thigh.
'Right royal, Otto,' says he to Bismarck. 'He had you feeling like a bad-mannered little schoolboy there, I'll swear. Bravo, your highness, you'll do.'
This was rather more familiarity with me than Ruth had allowed himself since my duel with de Gautet. It didn't matter to me, of course, but Bersonin was shocked, and muttered that Rudi was forgetting himself. It occurred to me then that I was not the only one who was beginning to believe in my own royalty. Anyway, I played up by remarking to Bersonin casually that the Freiherr was still at an age when impudence took precedence before dignity, and was this hock that we were to drink again tonight?
Bismarck observed all this impassively, but I felt sure he was secretly impressed by the naturalness of my princely behaviour, and even more by his own momentary reaction to it.
I should say in passing that Bismarck's appearance that night was a rare one. For days at a time I never saw him, but from casual conversation among the others I gathered that he was frequently in Berlin—he was a member of their Parliament, apparently, when he wasn't kidnapping useful Englishmen and plotting lese majeste. I also learned that he had a wife in the capital, which surprised me; somehow I had come to think of him as brooding malevolently in his lonely castle, wishing he was Emperor of Germany. I remembered that Lola had thought he was a cold fish where women were concerned, but it seemed that this was only a pose; before his marriage, apparently, he had been saddling up with all the wenches on his estate and breeding bastards like a buck rabbit. They called him the Schonhausen Ogre in those days, but of late he had been devoting himself to politics and his new wife, Bersonin said, and taking a serious interest in his farm property. A likely tale, thinks I;
However, as I say, we didn't see much of him, or of anyone else for that matter. They kept me pretty well confined to one wing of the house, and although there must have been servants I never saw one except the old butler. There wasn't a woman in the place, which was a dead bore, and when I suggested to Rudi that he might whistle up a wench or two to pass the evenings he just shook his head and said it was out of the question.
'Your highness must contain yourself in patience,' says he. 'May I respectfully remind you that your wedding is not far off?'
'Thanks very much,' says I. 'And may I respectfully remind you that I'm feeling randified now, and in no mood to hold myself in until my wedding to some young German cow who probably looks like a boatswain's mate.'
'Your highness need have no fears on that score,' says he, and he showed me a portrait of Duchess Irma of Strackenz which I must say cheered me up considerably. She looked very young, and she had one of those cold, narrow disdainful faces that you find on girls who have always had their own way, but she was a beauty, no question. Her hair was long and blonde, and her features very fine and regular; she made me think of a story I remembered from my childhood about a snow princess who had a heart of ice. Well, I could warm this one up, always assuming our enterprise got that far.
'In the meantime,' says I, 'what say to some nice, hearty country girl? She could teach me some more German, you know, and I could teach her anatomy.'
But he wouldn't hear of it.
So the weeks ran by, and I suppose that gradually the nightmare impossibility of my position must have begun to seem less incredible than it looks now, half a century after; whatever happens to you, however far- fetched, you get used to eventually, I've found, and when the time came to leave Schonhausen I was ready for it. I was in a fair funk, of course, but so heartily thankful to be getting out of that draughty mausoleum that even the ordeal ahead seemed endurable.
It must have been a week or so after the meeting with Bismarck that I've just described that I was summoned late one evening to his library. They were all there, Rudi, Bismarck, and the Three Wise Men, and I knew at once that something was up. Bismarck was still in his greatcoat, with the last snowflakes melting on its shoulders, and a little pool of water forming round each boot as he stood before the fire. He looked me over bleakly, hands behind his back, and then says:
'The scars are still too livid. Any fool can see they are recent.' This seemed an excellent reason to me for calling off the whole thing, but Kraftstein said in his ponderous way that he could attend to them; he had a salve which could disguise their pinkness and make them look like old wounds. This seemed to satisfy Bismarck, for he grunted and turned to Rudi.
'Otherwise he is ready? He can play the part? Your head depends on this, remember.'
'His highness is ready to resume his duties,' says Rudi.
Bismarck snorted. 'His highness! He is an actor, hired to play a part. Better he should remember that, and the consequences of missing a cue—he'll be less liable to bungle it. Oh, yes, Bersonin, I know all about your theories; I prefer realities. And the reality of this, Mr Flashman, is that tomorrow you leave for Strackenz. You know what is to do, the reward of success—and the price of failure.' His cold eyes played over me, 'Are you
