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Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; babbling Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit eloquence, inspired by indignation, on this topic: "He affected German downrightness, to which he was a stranger; and followed, under a deceitful show of piety, all the principles of Machiavel. With the most sordid love of money he combined boorish manners.
Here is Pollnitz's account of the journey homewards: "Till now," till Pillau and Dantzig, "his Majesty had been in especially good humor; but in Dantzig his cheerfulness forsook him; and it never came back. From Lupow he went to a poor Village near Belgard, EIGHTY miles farther;" last village on the great road, Belgard lying to left a little, on a side road; "and stayed there overnight.
The King of Poland laughed heartily at it; went straight to Friedrich Wilhelm, and excused himself. This is Pollnitz's testimony, gathered from the whispers of the Tabagie, or rumors in the Court-circles, and may be taken as indisputable in the main.
When at length the door of the royal cabinet was opened, and the minister of finance entered the ante-room, Pollnitz and Fredersdorf stood up, not however to greet the minister, but to pass him with a cold, contemptuous smile on their way to the door of the cabinet. The smile died suddenly on Pollnitz's lips, and he stood as if transfixed before the minister.
The king laughed; yes, in spite of the "Fioritures" of the raging singer, who had seen Pollnitz's shrug of the shoulders, and had vowed in the spirit to take a bloody vengeance. Louder and louder the fair Anna shrieked, but the king did not applaud. She had now finished the last note of her aria, and breathlessly with loudly-beating heart she waited for the applause of the king.
No one should think that she suffered. No one should pity her, not even the king. Elizabeth Christine joined in all the pleasures and amusements at Rheinsberg. She laughed at Bielfeld's jests, at Pollnitz's bright anecdotes; she listened with beaming eyes to Knobelsdorf's plans for beautifying the king's residence; she took part in the preparations for a drama that was to be performed.
We abridge from watery Pollnitz, taking care of any sense he has. This is what ran in certain high-frizzled heads then and there: and was dealt out in whispers to a privileged few, watery Pollnitz's informers among them, till they got a myth made of it. Frederick Duke of Edinburgh, second hope of England at this time, he is the hero.
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