After that terrible incident at Herrenchiemsee, I lost sight of the king for a long time. He did not want me near him now, so I confined my meetings with him to the few times that I accompanied Dr. Loewenfeld on a visit. Otherwise I listlessly went about my work at the Surgical Hospital in Munich, and pored over scientific books in my small attic room in the Maxvorstadt district, while only one name rang through my head.
Maria.
My love for her grew and grew in the months that followed, and so I traveled as often as possible to Linderhof, where she went about her work in a small farmhouse not far from the castle, and continued to keep the king company. Ludwig had forgiven Maria more quickly than me, and so she was usually somewhere near him. I did not venture to appear before both of them together yet, but whenever His Majesty set off to spend a few days at NEUSCHWANSTEIN and Hohenschwangau, Maria stayed behind at Linderhof on her own, and then my hour came.
I gave her small but precious gifts and sweetmeats. I rode with her through the Ammergau woods. Once we were caught in a thunderstorm and had to spend the night in a barn, but it was a chaste night, for I sensed that Maria still resisted confessing her love to me. I was sure that this reluctance was connected in some way with her son, Leopold, and that she was still devoted to the child’s father, even if he had abandoned them both. But if I broached the subject to her, she remained obstinately silent, and so I finally gave up, hoping that in time even that deep wound would heal.
On a cold winter’s evening, when the king was once again roaming the forests in his fairy-tale sleigh, I found her under the linden tree where we had first met. Its branches groaned under the weight of the snow they bore. Maria’s face showed that she had been weeping, and tears still ran down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter?” I asked in concern, stroking her hair, where a few snowflakes glittered. “Is it young Leopold? Has the boy been up to mischief again?”
She shook her head and blew her nose noisily. “I’m anxious about the king,” she said softly. “Day by day he’s getting . . . stranger. It’s as if he is moving more and more into another world. At first I thought it was just that he’s different from us ordinary mortals, but recently . . .” She broke off, and looked at me sadly. “Tell me, Theodor: outside the Grotto of Venus in the fall, you said that his enemies wanted to put him in a madhouse. Is that true? Do the king’s ministers want to have him certified insane? And what will become of him then?”
“I . . . I can’t tell you any details,” I murmured. “I mustn’t, for your own safety. But there’s still hope.” I caught her hands. “If Ludwig would only go to Munich, if he would give up some of his whims and fancies. Can’t you speak to him? He still seems to listen to you, at least.”
Wearily, Maria shook her head. “Ludwig lives in a country of his own, like Emperor Barbarossa under tons of rock deep below the Kyffhäuser hills. Not even I can reach him now.”
THE LONG WINTER passed, and at last spring came. Rumors that the king had lost his wits swelled louder and louder. Lutz and the other ministers had done all they could to ruin His Majesty’s reputation. Articles about Ludwig’s state of mind and his vast burden of debt were published in newspapers at home and abroad; his earlier obsession with Richard WAGNER was discussed again. Ribald songs about deranged “Herr Huber” were sung in the taverns of Munich, and the police did not intervene.
However, the king did nothing to quell these rumors, looking like the very image of a lunatic. On my few official visits, I saw that he was declining ever more swiftly. His teeth were falling out by the dozen, his neglected mouth stank, he ate huge quantities of food, and loudly abused the lackeys and ministerial officials who persisted in refusing him money for his castles. After his former equerry Richard Hornig had declined to rob banks for him, he sent couriers and dispatches to places as far afield as Constantinople, Tehran, and Brazil; he toyed with the idea of emigrating to a Pacific island and continuing his building there; he ordered officials to set up a secret army in preparation for a coup d’état; he shouted, raged, and scolded like a small child whose toy has been taken away—but whatever he did, he was not granted another pfennig.
Our small circle of conspirators watched this conduct with horror, but we were powerless. The attempts of Kaulbach and Loewenfeld to win Dr. Gudden over to our side had been fruitless. Instead, we learned through our contacts that the lackeys at court were still assiduously fishing compromising notes of the king’s out of wastebaskets and even the toilet. In addition, Prince Luitpold had publicly declared himself ready to assume the regency. It was five minutes to midnight, and the clock was inexorably ticking on.