joy.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

On the 18th of March, the day of the fighting in the streets of Berlin,
we had been living for a year in the large suite of apartments at No. 7
Linkstrasse.

Of those who inhabited the same house with us I remember only the
sculptor Streichenberg, whose studio was next to our pretty garden, and
the Beyers, a married couple. He, later a general and commander of the
troops besieging Strasburg in 1870, was at that time a first lieutenant.
She was a refined, extremely amiable, and very musical woman, who had met
our mother before, and now entered into the friendliest relations with
her.

A guest of their quiet household, a little Danish girl, one of Fran
Beyer's relatives, shared our play in the garden, and worked with us at
the flower beds which had been placed in our charge. I remember how
perfectly charming I thought her, and that her name was Detta Lvsenor.

All the details of our intercourse with her and other new acquaintances
who played with us in the garden have vanished from my memory, for the
occurrences of that time are thrown into shadow by the public events and
political excitement around us. Even children could not remain untouched
by what was impending, for all that we saw or heard referred to it and,
in our household, views violently opposed to each other, with the
exception of extreme republicanism, were freely discussed.

The majority of our conservative acquaintances were loud in complaint,
and bewailed the king's weakness, and the religious corruption and
hypocritical aspirations which were aroused by the honest, but romantic
and fanatical religious zeal of Frederick William IV.

I must have heard the loudest lamentations concerning this cancer of
society at this time, for they are the most deeply imprinted in my
memory. Even such men as the Gepperts, Franz Kugler, H. M. Romberg,
Drake, Wilcke, and others, with whose moderate political views I became
acquainted later, used to join us. Loyal they all were, and our mother
was so strongly attached to the house of Hohenzollern that I heard her
request one of the younger men, when he sharply declared it was time to
force the king to abdicate, either to moderate his speech or cease to
visit her house.

Our mother could not prevent, however, similar and worse speeches from
coming to our ears.

A particularly deep impression was made upon us by a tall man with a big
blond be