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The reception had begun before dusk, though by five o’clock the windows of the western drawing room were already black mirrors. Snow lay thick beyond them, softening the terraces and whitening the stone balustrades until the palace gardens seemed to have been erased beyond the glass. Inside, chandeliers burned against painted ceilings, servants moved between clusters of guests with silver trays, and the warmth carried mingled smells of beeswax, coffee, damp wool and the fir branches that had been arranged along the mantelpieces for the season.
Giselle had been entrusted with a small glass of watered apple juice and the instruction not to run. At three, this seemed an unreasonable restriction upon movement. She walked quickly instead. Her shoes made determined little taps across the parquet as she travelled between adults, sometimes disappearing entirely behind a dark evening coat or the skirts of a gown before emerging on the other side. Most of the guests knew her well enough to move a hand automatically away from a champagne glass when the top of her fair head appeared beside a table. Herr Albrecht, the elderly court physician, caught her once by the shoulders when she nearly collided with his knees and redirected her with grave solemnity. {"Her Imperial Highness is navigating badly this evening."} Giselle looked up at him. {"I am walking."} Albrecht’s expression remained grave. {"So I observe."} Giselle tightened both hands around her little glass. {"Mama said no running."} He inclined his head as though receiving a legal argument. {"Then Her Imperial Highness is perfectly innocent."}
She accepted this judgement at once and proceeded with the same rapid little steps, her glass held with both hands because Liselotte had told her that carrying it in one was how sleeves became wet. Liselotte watched from near the long windows while speaking with Countess Margarethe von Eberfeld, the wife of a senior palace official. Giselle had been permitted into the reception for only the earlier portion, before dinner, partly because it was considered useful for her to become accustomed to rooms full of strangers and partly because keeping her entirely upstairs whenever foreign guests were present had proved impossible. She knew perfectly well when something interesting was occurring beneath the nursery floor.
She had dressed accordingly, in a dark green woollen frock with cream embroidery at the collar, white stockings, polished black shoes and a narrow ribbon holding back her hair. Frau Greta Neumann, her governess, had attempted to straighten that ribbon three times. Giselle had undone the effect each time by putting both hands over her head while demonstrating the size of something she had seen outside. Greta now shadowed her at a discreet distance, carrying the expression of a woman prepared to intercept either catastrophe or jam.
The visitor arrived shortly after half past five. The double doors opened, and chamberlain Otto von Bernau entered first, his posture more rigid than usual. Behind him came a tall, broad German with iron-grey hair cut close around the sides and a heavy winter uniform beneath an open black overcoat. He was followed by two younger men, one carrying a leather document case, the other with an officer’s stiffness that seemed to continue even when he stopped moving. The German was introduced as Staatsrat Friedrich Keller, and several conversations thinned without quite ending.
Giselle noticed him because everybody else did. She had wandered back towards Liselotte after finishing most of her juice and was standing beside her mother’s skirts, attempting to peer through the glass at the snow, when Keller crossed the room. His boots sounded harder than the shoes around him. Otto said something quietly. Keller stopped before Liselotte. Then his right arm snapped upward.
Giselle turned immediately. The motion was magnificent. It was sudden, straight and enormous, quite unlike the small bows, handshakes and inclinations of the head through which adults had been boring her for most of the winter. Keller’s arm cut through the air and remained extended before him with the confidence of somebody beginning a stage performance. {"Heil Hitler."} Liselotte’s expression did not change. {"Good evening, Herr Keller. Welcome."} Keller lowered his arm.
Giselle stared at him. He had barely begun a courteous response before her own little arm started rising. There was no hesitation in it. She had seen a new greeting. She intended to perform it. Her elbow had only reached the level of her waist when Liselotte’s hand closed gently around her wrist.
Giselle looked up. Her mother lowered the arm back to her side without haste. She did not grip it, slap it or look alarmed. Her thumb briefly smoothed the cuff of Giselle’s sleeve as though the interruption concerned nothing more serious than a wrinkle. {"Not that one, darling."} Giselle frowned. {"Why?"} Liselotte kept hold of her hand, lightly now. {"Because our family does not greet people that way."}
Giselle looked again at Keller. He had heard. His mouth tightened almost imperceptibly, though he continued speaking with Otto as if nothing had occurred. Giselle’s attention remained on the question of greetings. {"He did."} Liselotte glanced briefly towards Keller and then back to her daughter. {"Yes. Herr Keller has his greeting."}
Liselotte crouched beside her, bringing their faces level despite the elaborate reception continuing around them. Her jewellery caught the chandelier light when she moved, but her voice remained quiet enough that Giselle had to pay attention. {"And Giselle has hers."} Giselle considered this. {"Mine?"} Liselotte nodded towards the nearby countess. {"Show Mama how she greets Frau Margarethe."}
Countess Margarethe, standing close enough to have heard every word, immediately understood her assignment. She stepped forward with great ceremony and clasped her hands before her. {"Good evening, Giselle."} Giselle shifted her empty glass into one hand and held out the other. {"Good evening."} Margarethe took it delicately, her own expression becoming solemn to match Giselle’s. {"There. Very good."}
Liselotte released Giselle’s wrist and glanced across the room. {"And Herr Albrecht?"} The old physician, several feet away, caught his name and turned. He approached with exaggerated dignity and bent his head. Giselle, delighted to discover herself suddenly conducting a lesson for adults, gave him a small formal inclination of her own. Albrecht returned it. {"Excellent. I feel properly greeted."}
Giselle smiled. Her mother touched one finger beneath her chin. {"That is how she does it."} Giselle glanced towards Keller again. He was now speaking with one of the ministers near the fireplace. His arm was down. The exciting part appeared to be over. {"Hand or head?"} she asked. Liselotte answered, {"Either may be correct. It depends upon the person."} Giselle thought for a moment before looking up at her. {"Mama?"} A warmth came into Liselotte’s face. {"Mama gets something else."}
Giselle immediately put both arms around Liselotte’s neck. Several nearby guests laughed softly. Liselotte kissed her temple and held her there for a moment. {"Precisely."}
The matter might have ended there if Giselle had not become interested in greetings for the remainder of the evening. She greeted Greta four times. The first involved a handshake. The second was a solemn bow so deep she almost struck her forehead against Greta’s waist. The third occurred after she had forgotten that she had already greeted her governess and believed some deficiency in etiquette had arisen. By the fourth, Greta bent down and caught Giselle’s offered hand between both of hers. {"If Your Highness greets me again, I shall begin to suspect she is hoping I will leave."} Giselle stared at her. {"You are not leaving."} Greta gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. {"Then perhaps one greeting is enough."} Giselle withdrew her hand and nodded as though this were valuable information.
She tested the principle upon Otto next. He was speaking with Colonel Anton Reiter of the palace guard when Giselle planted herself in front of him. Otto looked down and greeted her with a quiet, {"Your Highness."} She inclined her head. Otto returned it. Giselle proceeded directly to Anton. He looked very serious until she held out her hand. The colonel removed one glove before accepting it. {"Good evening."} Giselle answered, {"Good evening,"} then studied their joined hands with sudden interest. {"You took your glove off."}
{"Yes,"} Anton replied. Giselle looked at his remaining glove. {"Why?"} Anton glanced briefly towards Liselotte, who offered him no assistance. {"Because it is more polite."} Giselle continued examining the problem. {"Both?"} Anton shook his head. {"One is sufficient."} Giselle immediately asked, {"Why?"} Anton opened his mouth and nothing arrived. Otto turned away to conceal a smile before Anton finally said, {"Because otherwise I would have nowhere to put them."} Giselle accepted this.
Later, when she was taken upstairs, the whole lesson became part of the nursery. Greta removed the green dress and replaced it with a cream nightgown. Giselle climbed onto a low upholstered chair while her hair was brushed and began greeting the wooden animals arranged along the table beside her bed. The carved horse received a nod. The dog received a hand. The painted goose received another nod. A cloth rabbit was pressed to her cheek.
Greta watched in the mirror. {"And what does the rabbit receive?"} Giselle squeezed it against herself. {"Mama greeting."} Greta smiled faintly as she drew the brush carefully through the ends of Giselle’s hair. {"A great honour."}
Giselle looked at the rabbit, then abruptly lifted its floppy right paw straight into the air. Greta’s hand stopped halfway through another brush stroke. The child stared at the raised paw for a moment. Then she lowered it herself. {"No."} Greta resumed brushing. {"No?"} Giselle put the rabbit against her chest again. {"Not ours."} Greta’s eyes met hers in the mirror. {"Quite right."} Giselle seemed satisfied.
By January the lesson had been buried beneath newer matters. There had been snowmen in the eastern garden, a cough that confined her to the nursery for four days, an argument about whether soup became colder if a person disliked it, and an afternoon in which Giselle attempted to persuade Anton that palace guards should be allowed to carry biscuits in their ammunition pouches. The winter deepened. Foreign visitors continued to arrive.
One bitter afternoon, when the wind drove fine snow against the windows in dry rattling bursts, another German delegation was received. Giselle was present only because she had been walking with Liselotte through the gallery when the party appeared at the far end, accompanied by Otto and two officials from the foreign ministry. The leading visitor was younger than Keller had been, perhaps in his early forties, with sleek dark hair and a narrow face. Dr. Wilhelm Brandt was attached to one of the Reich ministries and had cultivated the kind of polished friendliness that seemed to require him to smile before anybody else had spoken.
Liselotte stopped and Giselle stopped beside her. Greta, following several steps behind with Giselle’s abandoned woollen hat in her hands, did the same. Otto began the introductions. Brandt bowed slightly to Liselotte, straightened and then raised his arm. {"Heil Hitler."}
The corridor became very quiet. Giselle watched the arm rise. Something moved across her face—not alarm, nor recognition of anything beyond the gesture itself, but the tiny concentration of a child sorting an object into the proper drawer. Brandt looked down at her. Giselle did not lift her arm.
Instead, she stepped half a pace forward and presented her right hand. It was very small against the front of her winter-blue dress. Brandt remained motionless for a fraction too long. Giselle waited. Her hand stayed extended. Behind the German delegation, Otto’s eyes shifted briefly towards Liselotte. Greta lowered her gaze to the woollen hat she was holding.
Brandt finally let his arm fall. Then he took Giselle’s hand. {"Good afternoon, Your Highness."} Giselle answered him with complete seriousness. {"Good afternoon."} She gave him a precise little nod after he released her. Brandt returned it.
Giselle immediately looked towards the next visitor, a heavyset older man with spectacles. He had been watching. His right arm remained firmly by his side. He bowed instead, and Giselle bowed back. The third man offered his hand before she could decide which greeting to choose. She accepted it solemnly.
Then she looked up at Liselotte. There was the faintest question in her expression, seeking confirmation that she had remembered everything correctly. Liselotte rested a hand lightly against the back of her daughter’s head and said, {"Beautiful manners."}
Giselle brightened. She took her mother’s fingers as they continued down the gallery, already distracted by something else. A servant had left a vase of winter branches on a side table, and one of them carried a single shrivelled red berry that she wanted to inspect. Before they had passed the next window she was tugging gently at Liselotte’s hand and asking whether birds became hungry when snow covered the ground. Behind them, Otto resumed speaking to the German delegation, and Brandt did not raise his arm again.