MARK AND THE IMPERIAL MISTRESS
At Vienna, in the late nineties, Clemens one fine day intoxicated himself with the idea that there would be millions in writing a play with Kathi Schratt, Emperor Francis Joseph’s acknowledged mistress, as heroine. He had in mind a collaborator among native playwrights, and the piece was to be translated into all living tongues. Mark actually started on the thing, adding to his knowledge of German as he went along. Matters having gone so far, I persuaded him to go and see Frau Schratt for local color.
“Bully,” he said. “But you must come along. I would never trust myself alone with a royal mistress, not I.”
Well, we went, saw, and—wondered at Francis Joseph’s taste. In speech and manner, though, the Schratt was a fine old girl. Showed us a big houseful of presents, all gifts from his Majesty, and elaborately so marked.
We had duly admired the silver bed, the silver folding stool and the ditto cabinet, likewise other chamber paraphernalia of white metal, when the Schratt said: “There is one thing more the like of which you haven’t in America.”
“You don’t say so!” ejaculated Mark, in blasphemous German.
The Schratt pushed a button, a wall panel shot sideways, and the handsomest silver-gilt bathtub ever came waltzing in, or rather roller-skated in.
In our homeward bound fiacre, Mark remained silent for fully ten minutes; then he delivered himself sadly but firmly:
“No, it’s all off with that mellerdrammer. For if I let Schratt ride down to the footlights in that golden tub, people will want to see the Empress in it, too; next they will holler for Kaiser Bill, Sarah Bernhardt, Loie Fuller, and William Jennings Bryan. It won’t work—people are such hogs!”
And the drama was never proceeded with.