Show 1 Wilhelms Wilhelm's White Whit L Lady d r I 4 pHE spectral ral white lady h has s appeared ag again in in the former lormer imperial l palace at Berlin and superstitious i J s Germans are ae saying that this foretells death oJ of f ex Kaiser ex-Kaiser Kaiser Wilhelm This white lady is the ancestral ghost of the 1 Ever since 1806 she has flitted into view on the eve of disaster Her appearance legend says is always always' followed fol fol- fol- fol lowed lowed- by some catastrophe death death or something something something some- some thing else Wilhelm it is is' said saw her a few days before the final final- crumbling of f the German perman lines in 1918 complied him to abdicate abdicate abdi abdi- cate cafe his throne thron and flee to Holland Now she is seen again The old imperial palace palaces is a museum and a night watchman affirms that the specter was seen by him gliding gliding gliding ing in and out of the suite formerly occupied by Wilhelm himself which himself which makes i it obvious that whatever happens will happen to Wihelm Wit Wi- helm and not to a lesser lesse Wilhelm Wilhelm- for all we know may be quite r r unworried by bj all of this indeed the man who used to be the kaiser is in some ways in n a rather enviable position Nothing that that an happen lappen to not him hiim him even death death can can be much of a misfortune for him When November 11 11 of 1918 came and found him roosting in uneasy safety across the Dutch border order his life had really come to an end Any subsequent i quent nt event was was- bound to be an anticlimax For For- Wilhelm born under an unlucky star lived too long In his J life he came to be a anthol for an outworn system He was the supreme figurehead and earthly representative tive jive o of an archaic idea the idea the idea of divine kingship That idea along along- with much other rubbish accumulated ted by the centuries was blown to bits by the tb guns on the western front When it vanished Wilhelm too vanished van van- The The flesh and bon bones s of him still exist of oft t course A gray h haired gray ir d' d dold old man With lith Y-a Y a with with- withered red ered arm has continued to eat walk walk- and sleep at Doorn at Do rn emitting protests complaints and explanations ever so often but the real man mail manthe the the imperial war var lord who held fleets and armies in his hand hand died died with the field field- gray field ray soldiers in fhe the Ar Argonne and along the Hindenburg Hinden- Hinden burg line The Th shadow shado still hangs langs on but its existence is important to no one one not not evento evento even evento to Wilhelm It is the fate of most of us to be symbols of something outside ourselves Our lives attain coherence and nobility only when we identify ourselves with some force or movement move move- rent ment in which h others may share Wilhelm of pf Germany was supremely unlucky in that he tied himself to a thing that was doomed to die The world advanced beyond the idea that he embodied and he died with it The white lady of the may flit through li the deserted palace at will it if no lon longer er matters The Tile last of the kaisers has been dead for a decade |