princes of the blood by their uncle, the Emperor. As your Excellency can see, the two young men are kneeling and taking the oath with great solemnity on the Emperor's sword."
"Fine, extraordinarily fine! What colouring! Dazzling. What lovely golden hair the princes have! And the Emperor … exactly as he is described in the books! Yes, that Lindemann well deserves all the distinctions which have been given him."
"Absolutely. Those which have been given him; those he quite deserves."
Dr. von Schröder, a tall man with a white beard, a pair of thin gold spectacles on his white nose, a belly protruding slightly underneath his stomach, and a bull-neck, which lapped over the stiff collar of his coat, looked, without taking his eyes off the picture, somewhat doubtfully at it, under the influence of a diffidence which seized him from time to time during conversations with the baron. This Knobelsdorff , this favourite and exalted functionary, was so enigmatical. At times his remarks, his retorts, had an indefinable tinge of irony about them. He was a widely travelled man, he had been all over the world, he had so much general knowledge, and interests of such a strange and exotic kind. And yet he was a model of correctness. Herr von Schroder could not quite understand him. How ever much one agreed with him, it was impossible to feel that one really understood him. His opinions were full of a mysterious reserve, his judgments of a tolerance which left one wondering whether they implied approval or contempt.
But the most suspicious thing about him was his laugh, a laugh of the eyes in which the mouth took no part, a laugh which seemed to be produced by the wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, or vice versa to have produced those same wrinkles in the course of years. Baron Knobels-
