Naturally, on the following day, I was allowed to sleep in for as long as I wished, but my youngest sisters Emma and Hildegard appeared in my bedroom early, before having breakfast and heading to school. I just squinted, they counted the bouquets, examined the dance card, read the names, and made their snide comments: “X again [ . . . ] and Y twice [ . . . ]! You know, I think this is conspicuous!” Mumbling from bed: “That’s what you think!”
In front of the window, the white or pink ballroom dress made of tulle lay on the armchair; it had a train and a satin waist that fit like a glove. Sitting on the floor in front were satin shoes, on the window ledge the light-colored folding fan and laced handkerchief. To be on the safe side, I had carefully placed the bouquets that now filled the room with fragrance in the bathtub. It was a young girl’s room – a still life of the era.
For us, the right dancer for a regular, proper ball was a lieutenant, namely a Guards lieutenant. We had less contact with Guards cavalry regiments; in our house and those of close acquaintances, the Guards infantryman held sway, especially the preferred Second Guards Infantry Regiment. We also accepted Czar Alexander’s Regiment, but those of Kaiser Franz Josef, the Guards Light Infantry Regiment, and the Guards Artillerymen fell a bit behind. Guards Engineers and Guards Pioneers were not for us.
The importance of regiments made its mark on Berlin society. [ . . . ] Outsiders regarded the Berlin court, and any circles somehow connected with it, as exclusively aristocratic; they considered pedigree and name to be of foremost importance. As is generally known, this was the case in Vienna, and to a certain degree also in Munich, but actually not in Berlin. Here, even the most recent title was sufficient; only the three little letters v, o, n were required. However, each respective regiment had a significant impact not only on its members but also on the reputation of the house where it primarily socialized. If people said of a family, “that house is teeming with dragoons from the Second Guards Regiment,” this was a very good thing. If they mentioned the “Garde du Corp,” that was splendid. Any daughter of a family directly allegiant to the emperor [Kaiser] would much rather dance with the newly ennobled Sir of Kramsta from the Guards Cavalry Regiment than with the Count of Schwerin from the Third Guards Infantry Regiment. Even though the latter was “ancient nobility,” his family had also necessarily been sitting out there on country soil for half a millennium.
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