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M. WALLENBERG
271
private person, giving himself up entirely to the pursuit
of art. He is a very good landscape-painter, and has a
high reputation in the country. He can without
exaggeration be placed among the very good painters
of Sweden—immediately after Zorn, the celebrated
Liliefors and Carl Larson.
I was already acquainted with Prince William, the
ex-husband of the Grand-Duchess Marie; he was tall
and good-looking, and confined himself almost entirely
to his naval profession and the society of his friends;
but he was very popular with the society ladies of
Stockholm, with whom he had always been a favourite.
As I said above, the King was taken seriously ill on
his journey to the North. For weeks he hung between
life and death, and I did not see him again till July,
when he still looked terribly pulled down, thin and
weak, but was gradually recovering his health and
strength.
Two days after my solemn audience of the King, I
went to call on M. Wallenberg, with whom I had only
exchanged the customary commonplaces on my arrival.
The new Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs began at
once to talk business with me, and, to my great surprise,
touched on a subject of " high politics" and politics
generally. He expressed in guarded—but nevertheless
very frank—terms his apprehensions on the subject of
the European situation, and even his fears about the
preservation of peace. Although sharing in petto the
sentiments of the speaker, I took good care not to
endorse his opinion or even to follow him on to this
ticklish topic; on the contrary I expressed the firm
hope that peace would be in no way threatened, that in
our country everything would be done to avoid dangerous
friction, that I had, in the course of my long diplomatic
career, become accustomed to these attacks of European
uneasiness, which happily never led to disastrous
consequences, etc. . . . But my host did not allow himself
to be discouraged. "You come from the Balkan East,
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