LITMIR.BIZ

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sceptique! Did I speak of obligation, then? It is true, I hope to interest you in a small affair of mine – oh, but an affair after your own heart, I think, and to our mutual advantage. But first, let us do honour to the table – champagne, my boy!’

      So I waited while he gorged his way through half a dozen overblown courses – why the French must clart decent grub with glutinous sauces beats me – and when the waiters had cleared and we were at the brandy and cigars he sighed with repletion, patted his guts, and fished a mounted picture from his pocket.

      ‘It is a most amusing intrigue, this,’ says he, and presented it with a flourish. ‘Voilà!’

      I’m rather a connoisseur of photography, and there was a quality about the present specimen which took my attention at once. It may have been the opulence of the setting, or the delicacy of the hand-colouring, or the careful composition which had placed two gigantic blackamoors with loin-cloths and scimitars among the potted palms, or the playful inclusion of the parakeet and tiny monkey on either side of the Oriental couch on which lounged a lovely odalisque clad only in gold turban and ankle-fetters, her slender body arched to promote jutting young bumpers which plainly needed no support, her lips parted in a sneer which promised unimaginable depravities. A caption read ‘La Petite Caprice’; well, it was a change from Frou-Frou … I tore my eyes away from the potted palms, a mite puzzled. As I’ve said, Blowitz had put me in the way of Society gallops, but never a professional.

      ‘Très appétissante, non?’ says he.

      I tossed it back to him. ‘Which convent is she advertising?’

      He clucked indignantly. ‘She is not what you suppose! This is a theatrical picture, made when she was employed at the Folies – from necessity, let me tell you, to finance her studies – serious studies! Such pictures are de rigueur for a Folies comedienne.’

      ‘Well, I could see she hated posing for it –’

      ‘Would it surprise you,’ says he severely, ‘to learn that she is a trained criminologist, speaks fluently four languages, rides, fences and shoots, and is a valued member of the département secret of the Ministry of the Interior, at present in our Berlin Embassy … where I was influential in placing her? Ah, you stare! Do I interest you, my friend?’

      ‘She might, if she was on hand. But since she ain’t, and posing for lewd pictures belies her stainless purity –’

      ‘Did I say that? No, no, my boy. She is no demi-mondaine, la belle Caprice, but she is … a woman of the world, let us say. That is why she is in Berlin.’

      ‘And what’s she to do with this small affair after my own heart to our mutual advantage?’

      He sat back, lacing his tubby fingers across his pot. ‘As I recall, you were at one time intimate with the German Chancellor, Prince Bismarck, but that you hold him in no affection –’

      I choked on my brandy. ‘Thank’ee for the dinner and the Legion of Honour, old Blow,’ says I, preparing to rise. ‘I don’t know where you’re leading, but if it’s to do with him, I can tell you that I wouldn’t go near the square-headed bastard with the whole Household Brigade –’

      ‘But, my friend, be calm, I beg! Resume the seat, if you please! It is not necessary that you … go near his highness! No such thing … he figures only, how shall I say – at a distance?’

      ‘That’s too bloody close!’ I assured him, but he protested that I must hear him out; our destinies were linked, he insisted, and he would not dream of a proposal distasteful to me, death of his life – quite the reverse, indeed. So I sat down, and put myself right with a brandy; mention of Bismarck always unmans me, but the fact was I was curious, not least about the delectable Mamselle Caprice.

      ‘Eh bien,’ says Blowitz, and leaned forward, plainly bursting to unfold his mystery. ‘You are aware that in a few weeks’ time a great conference is to take place at Berlin, of all the Powers, to amend this ridiculous Treaty of San Stefano made by Russia and Turkey?’ I must have looked blank, for he blew out his cheeks. ‘At least you know they have recently been at war in the Balkans?’

      ‘Absolutely,’ says I. ‘There was talk of us having a second Crimea with the moujiks, but I gather that’s blown over. As for … San Stefano, did you say? Greek to me, old son.’

      He shook his head in despair. ‘You have heard of the Big Bulgaria, surely?’

      ‘Not even of the little ’un.’

      He seemed ready to weep. ‘Or the Sanjak of Novi Bazar?’

      ‘Watch your tongue, if you please. We’re in a public place.’

      ‘Incroyable!’ He threw up his hands. ‘And it is an educated Englishman, this, widely travelled and of a military reputation! Europe may hang on the brink of catastrophe, and you …’ He smote his fat forehead. ‘My dear ’Arree, will you tell me, then, what events of news you have remarked of late?’

      ‘Well, let’s see … our income tax went up tuppence … baccy and dog licences, too … some woman or other has sailed round the world in a yacht …’ He was going pink, so just to give him his money’s worth I added: ‘Elspeth’s bought one of these phonographs that are all the rage … oh, aye, and Gilbert and Sullivan have a new piece, and dam’ good, too; the jolliest tunes. “I am an Englishman, be-hold me!” … as you were just saying –’³

      ‘Enough!’ He breathed heavily. ‘I see I must undertake your political education sur-le-champ. Gilbert and Sullivan, mon dieu!’

      And since he did, and I’ll lay odds that you, dear reader, know no more about Big Bulgaria and t’other thing than I did, I’ll set it out as briefly as can be. It’s a hellish bore, like all diplomaticking, but you’d best hear about it – and then you can hold your own with the wiseacres at the club or tea-table.

      First off, the Balkans … you have to understand that they’re full of people who’d much rather massacre each other than not, and their Turkish rulers (who had no dam’ business to be in Europe, if you ask me) were incapable of controlling things, what with the disgusting inhabitants forever revolting, and Russia and Austria trying to horn in for their own base ends. By and large we were sympathetic to the Turks, not because we liked the brutes but because we feared Russian expansion towards the Mediterranean (hence the Crimean War, where your correspondent won undying fame and was rendered permanently flatulent by Russian champagne).^fn2

      At the same time we were forever nagging the Turks to be less monstrous to their Balkan subjects, with little success, Turks being what they are, and when, around ’75, the Bulgars revolted and the Turks slaughtered 150,000 of them to show who was master, Gladstone got in a fearful bait and made his famous remark about the Turks clearing out, bag and baggage. He had to sing a different tune when the Russians invaded Ottoman territory and handed the Turks a handsome licking; we couldn’t have Ivan lording it in the Balkans, and for a time it looked as though we’d have to tackle the Great Bear again – we sent warships to the Dardanelles and Indian regiments to Malta, but the crisis passed when Russia and Turkey made peace, with the San Stefano Treaty.

      The trouble was that this treaty created what was called ‘Big Bulgaria’, which would clearly be a Russian province and stepping-stone to the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. The Austrians, with their own ambitions in the Balkans, were also leery of Russia, so to keep the peace Bismarck, the ‘honest broker’ (ha!) called the Congress of Berlin to amend San Stefano to everyone’s satisfaction, if possible.⁴

      ‘Everyone will be there! Tout le monde!’ Blowitz was fairly gleaming with excitement. ‘Prince Bismarck will preside, with your Lord Salisbury and Lord Beaconsfield – as we must learn to call M. D’Israeli – Haymerle and Andrassy from Austria, Desprez and Waddington from France, Gorchakov and Shuvalov from Russia – oh, and so many more, from Turkey and Italy and Germany … it will be the greatest conference of the Powers since the Congress of Vienna,

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