On the Night of the Seventh Moon

I sipped the wine. It made my throat tingle.

“It’ll warm the cockles of your heart, as they say. There now, doesn’`t it? What did you think of our Prince?”

“Very handsome.

“Well, I’d say Fredy was the more handsome of the two but young Maxi had a charm of his own.”

“So you called him Maxi.”

“Oh, he’s Carl Ludwig Maximilian like his father-so is the little one.

They’re all Carls when they come to power but they have their own family names. The boy’s called Carl in the Family and in public, like his grandfather. It did me good to see Maxi. He looked well, I thought, after his stay in Berlin. I’ll warrant he enjoyed that. They say the Berlin girls are very smart. “

“Did he go to see the girls?”

She laughed her loud abandoned laugh.

“Well, he’d always do that; but it was this conference as well. He’ll have to show himself now round the countryside. I’ll bet he’ll be off on a tour of some sort soon.

He’s been away some time. It was a good procession, wasn’`t it? Nothing like royalty to draw the crowds. And of course a young Prince is always an attraction. Prince Charming, you know. The people like a young Duke and they say his father’s not long for this world. He had a bad illness last year. It was a wonder he survived. Fredy’s a trial.

He doesn’`t want to see his cousin come into the title the boy I brought up with him in the nursery. ” She shook her head.

“Fredy was always a handful. They both were.”

While she spoke she was watching me with her bright, humorous but intent gaze.

I wanted to say to her: Go away. I must be alone to think.

She went to the window.

“There’s his own flag flying from the tower.

Blue on green with the eagle in the corner. That means he’s there. The Duke’s flag is there too. “

I got up and went to the window and looked out. There were the two flags as Frau Graben had said.

“Fredy flies his flag from his own schloss and it’s very similar to Maxi’s. Fredy had the design altered slightly so that the difference between them is not all that easy to tell. Mischief!”

I stood at the window looking at the fluttering flags.

“He’s come home in time for the Night of the Seventh Moon,” she observed.

I spent a sleepless night and the next morning was determined to see him soon. If I wrote, would the letter reach him? There were probably secretaries who screened his correspondence. Suppose I presented myself at the schloss and said: “I must see the Prince. I am an old friend of his.”

It would not be easy. There were guards at the entry to the schloss.

They would not let me through. I could consult Frau Graben. If she were on such familiar terms with Maximilian as she was with the Count, she would advise me; but she would ferret my story from me and I did not wish to speak of it to anyone.

I remembered how it had upset me when I had talked to Anthony. No one could have been more sympathetic, too much so perhaps.

Frau Graben came to my room before breakfast to see how I was. Why didn’`t I take a day’s holiday? she said. Get into the forest with the children. It would do me good.

I said: “Is the Family accessible?”

She looked puzzled.

“I mean, do they meet people?”

“They’re meeting people all the time.”

“I mean spontaneously. Do people call on them ?”

“Call on them! Well, not exactly. They’d have to wait until they were asked, wouldn’`t they?”

“I see. And I suppose there are secretaries and so on to protect them?”

“Well, would anyone be able to call on your queen?”

I said I was sure that would have to be arranged too.

She went to the window.

“Oh, the Prince’s flag is no longer flying.

That means he’s set off on his tour already. I shan’t see him now-until he gets back. I’ll give him a good talking to. He knows I like to see him when he gets back from his stays away from us. “

I felt a sense of frustration. I was on the point of telling Frau Graben that I was planning to see him; that I must see him on a matter of great importance to me. But I felt it was wiser to say nothing. In any case I could take no action until he came back. Perhaps in the next few days some solution would occur to me.

So I continued to fret and brood and yet sometimes I was so happy that my moods were unpredictable. I fluttered between despair and a wild unreasoning hope.

The children were excited. Soon it would be the Night of the Seventh Moon. They had pointed the moon out to me when it was no more than a slim crescent lying there in the sky, seeming to hang over the ducal schloss. When it was full there would be the great night.

There would be firework displays in the schloss gardens and the whole town would be able to see them. Frau Graben had said that we should look from the turret-room where we would get the best view.

“The children would like to go into the town,” she said, ‘but I’m not having that. As for you. Miss Trant, I’d strongly advise you to stay in too. I wouldn’`t like to think of you out there.

People seem to go quite mad on this night. You wouldn’`t understand.

“

“I think I do,” I said.

“My goodness, ordinary decent Christians behave like barbarians.

Something happens when the moon is full, they say. We go right back to the days before Jesus Christ walked this earth. Then there was a different religion here and this is Loke’s land . the land of mischief. I reckon it’s time this was abolished. The Duke tried to once, you know, but the people wouldn’`t have it. Whether the night was recognized or not, they were still out in their masks and costumes.

There’s many a girl meets her ruin on the Night of the Seventh Moon.

“

I shall be content to watch from the turret-room window,” I said.

She nodded smiling.

“I’ll feel happier to know you’re there.”

All day long there was a mounting tension. On the previous afternoon the Prince had returned to the schloss. Before I went to bed I saw his flag flying from the tower.

I could not describe my feelings; they fluctuated between despair and elation, between frustration and hope. One thought filled my mind: I must see him soon.

In the afternoon the children, Frau Graben and I drove down into the town to see the preparations. Flags were hanging from the windows of the houses and I had never seen the flower-boxes at many of the windows so colourful. Some of the shops had boarded up their windows.

The sun was hot; people were laughing and joking; they were all talking of “Tonight’.

“I want to come down here tonight and see the dancing,” announced Dagobert.

“You’re going to see the fireworks,” Frau Graben told him firmly.

“I want to come too,” said Liesel, who followed Dagobert in everything.

“Now, now,” said Frau Graben comfortably, ‘the fireworks will be lovely. “

“I’ll come out and put on a mask and ride down,” cried Dagobert.

“I dare say, my lad, in your dreams,” laughed Frau Graben.

“Now, who’d like to go to The Prince’s for spiced buns?” She gave me a gentle nudge. That sounded funny, didn’`t it? Go to the Prince’s for spiced buns. The inn, I mean, of course, not His Highness. “

She went on chuckling at her joke and I made up my mind that the next day I would come down to the town when the children were with Pastor Kratz and ride up to the schloss and tell the guards that they must let the Prince know that Helena Trant was asking to see him. At least if I did not see him, then I might discover how I could do so.

The children chattered over their buns and Frau Graben said we’d better be getting back. The crowds started coming in early, and we didn’`t want to get caught in the crush.

The evening came. I kept thinking of that long-ago day, of going forth into the town another town, it was true, but that afternoon I had been struck by the similarity between the two-of losing Ilse and plunging straight into fantasy.