rown Prince has won his freedom at last; he
is keeping a most exact record of all that happens in Berlin and in the
immediate environment of his severe father. It is well known that you
influence the King more than do his ministers.

EVERSMANN.

If the poetic fancy of our Crown Prince, who, by the way, is my devoted
young friend Fritz, cannot see the truth more clearly than that, then I
have little respect for the imaginative power of poets. I--and
influence? I twist His Majesty's stately pigtail every morning, clip his
fine manly beard, fill his cozy little Dutch pipe for him each
evening--and if in the course of these innocent employments His Most
Sacred Majesty lets fall a hint, a remark--a little command
possibly--why--naturally--

SONNSFELD.

You pick them up and weave them into a "nice innocent little influence"
for yourself. Eh? An influence that has already earned you three city
houses, five estates, and a carriage-and-four. Have a care that the
Crown Prince does not auction off all these objects under the
gallows-tree some fine day.

EVERSMANN.

Oh, but your Ladyship must have slept badly. Pray spare me
these--predictions and prophesyings, which are made up of whole cloth.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is far too much, of a philosopher to
take such revenge on a man who has no more dealings with His Majesty
than to fill his pipe each evening, to braid his pigtail each morning,
and to shave him in the good old German fashion every second day. Have I
made my meaning clear?

[_He goes out._]

SONNSFELD.

Go your way, you old sinner! You may pretend to be ever so honest and
simple--we know you and your like. Oh, what a life we lead here in this
Court! Cannons thunder in the garden under our windows every morning or
else they send up a company of soldiers to accustom us to early rising.
After the morning prayer the Princess knits, sews, presses her linen,
studies her catechism, and, alas! is forced to listen to a stupid sermon
every day. At dinner, we get very little to eat; then the King takes his
afternoon nap. He's forever quarreling with the Queen, they have
scarcely a good word to say to each other, and yet the entire family are
expected to look on at His Majesty's melodious snore-concert, and even
to brush away the flies from the face of the sleeping Father of his
country. If my Princess did not possess so much natural wit and spirit,
the sweet creature would be quite crushed by such a life.