‘It worries me, I confess. But it could have been any one of us. The Squadron was up, we were very busy indeed, we had severe losses, of course. But you can just imagine my feelings! To have been responsible for such a thing; as you must know, when you are young you take things to heart so much. Oh that war! What foolishness it all was. We should never have fought each other, the English and the Germans; we are practically brothers, you know. And the Royal Family has a good deal of German blood in its veins; some from this very state of Holstein. Now then! What better proof do you need than that?’ He drained his glass. ‘No. A tragedy, a grave error. Together we could have ruled Europe, we Saxons, but the Vulgarian, Hitler. What a terrible mistake he made over those Jews. My God! To expel them to the East, where they belong, yes: but to burn them, if it is really true, was the wildest folly. The English are sentimental, the Americans are financed by their Jews, and, of course, as we know, Eisenhower wished to punish us, so they let the hordes of the East cross the Oder. But for that, one idiotic mistake we could have joined forces and pushed the Russians back far, far beyond the Vistula.’

He stubbed his cigar butt deliberately into the base of a stone urn beside him, lifted the soggy stump towards her between thumb and forefinger. ‘But as it is, if this were a javelin and I had the strength of my youth, could throw it as once I did, they would catch it just over there, in open hands.’ He dropped it instead into the flower-bed below.

‘A sobering thought: the Americans are a devious race. They wanted to divide Europe, bring her to her knees, and then dictate their own terms. But they have made a dreadful political blunder, as they usually do. For they have spread the cancer of Communism far and wide and now they cannot contain it.’

‘Please!’ she said. ‘Not on this evening! All that was long before I was even born, it is history, and I have never been very good at that. Shall we go back?’

He offered a ringed hand. ‘Disgraceful of me! On such an occasion too! I must blame too much wine at dinner … and the music, you hear it? So reminding, the old songs. Of course not to you, I know. I apologize, but this one is charming, no? “Ein Lied geht um die Welt”, such memories. I was a little younger than you are now. Come! They will think that I am flirting.’ He took her cold hand and they walked together towards the candle-lit group which was laughing at one of the dogs begging elegantly for a sugar crystal.