Everybody—everybody that was noble of course,for as for the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM—visited his neighbour. H.E. Madame de Burst received once a week, H. E.Madame de Schnurrbart had her night—the theatre was open twice a week, the Court graciously received once, so that a man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel way.
That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny.Politics ran very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter. There was the Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by our envoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau. Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame Strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had three more notes in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival—it sufficed, I say, for our Minister to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted by the French diplomatist.