in the Palace gardens, which border on
Agency guides had told me who she was.
window of the breakfast room of the
heavily testicled specimen, relieved
bushes, and the Dowager Duchess gazed
reserved for the eyes of true
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">But now and the soft, weathered face of the Duchess worked
her feelings.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" said, hoping that the translatomat would
the proper appellation for a duchess
me, I am from another country, whose
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">She looked at me unseeing, dimly surprised but too absorbed in
sorrow to wonder at my ignorance or my
effrontery. "Sissie’s,"
she said, and speaking the name made
her break into open sobs
for a moment. She turned away, hiding
her face in her large lace
handkerchief, and I dared ask no
more.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">The crowd was growing rapidly, constantly. By the time the coffin
was borne forth from the church, there
must have been over a thousand
people, most of the population of
Legners, all of them members
of the Royal Family, crowded into the
square. The King and his
two sons and his brother followed the coffin at a respectful distance.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">The coffin was carried and closely surrounded by people I had
never seen before, a very odd
lot–pale, fat men in cheap suits,
pimply boys, middle-aged women with
brassy hair and stiletto heels, thick thighs in a miniskirt, mantilla. She staggered half-hysterical, supported with a pencil mustache and small, dry, tired, dogged woman rusty black.</FONT></P>
and a highly visible young woman with a halter top, and a black cotton lace along after the coffin weeping aloud, on one side by a scared-looking man two-tone shoes, on the other by a in her seventies dressed entirely in
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">At the far edge of the crowd I saw a native guide with whom I
had struck up a lightweight
friendship, a young viscount, son
of the Duke of Ist, and I worked my
way toward him. It took quite
a while, as everyone was streaming
along with the slow procession
of the coffin-bearers and their entourage toward the King’s limousines
and horse-drawn coaches that waited
near the Palace gates. When
I finally got to the guide I said, "Who is it? Who are they?"</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">"Sissie," he said almost in a wail, caught up in the general grief–"Sissie
died last night!" Then, coming
back to his duties as guide and pleasant aristocratic manner,
he looked at me, blinked back his