CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE LORD HIGH STEWARD.
At the same hour in which Ilse was listening to the comforting words of her landlord, the carriage of the Lord High Steward was driving to the tower castle of the Princess. The Princess received the announcement with astonishment, and flew down to her reception-room. The Professor caused the chest with its contents to be taken to his room, and was in the act of bending over the manuscript, when the High Marshal entered below to deliver himself of his commission. Meanwhile the Princess awaited the old gentleman.
The Lord High Steward had been appointed to the honorable office of attendance upon the Princess: it was a considerate way of removing him from the person of the Sovereign. At the same hour every morning his carriage was to be seen standing before the wing of the castle which was occupied by the Princess. His personal relations to the young Princess appeared cool; in Court society he was treated by her with just as much distinction as was needful, and petitioners learnt sometimes that their requests were imparted to him. He was esteemed by the citizens on account of his benevolence, and was the only one of the lords of the Court concerning whom one never heard an unfavorable opinion. He dwelt in an old-fashioned house surrounded by gardens, was unmarried, rich, without relations, and lived quietly by himself. He was, it was supposed, without influence; he was not in favor, and was therefore treated by the young cavaliers with chivalrous condescension. He was, notwithstanding all this, indispensable to the Sovereign and the Court. He was the great dignitary who was necessary for all ceremonious affairs; he was counsellor in all family matters; he was ambassador and escort in all transactions with foreign powers. He was well known at most of the courts of Europe, had acquaintances in the great diplomatic bodies, and enjoyed the special favor of various rulers whose good will was of importance to the Sovereign; and as in our courts the reputation that one enjoys at foreign capitals is the standard of the judgment of the palace, the correspondence which he carried on with political leaders in foreign countries, and the abundance of broad ribbons of which he had the choice, gave him with the Sovereign himself an authority which was at the same time burdensome and valuable; he was the secret counsellor for the Court and the last resource in difficult questions.
The servant opened the door of the Princess's room with a profound bow to the old gentleman. Indifferent questions and answers were exchanged, the Princess entered the adjoining room and intimated to her faithful lady-in-waiting by a sign that she was to keep watch in front. When the conversation was secure from the ear of any listener, the demeanor of the Princess altered, she hastened up to the old gentleman, seized him by the hand, and looked inquiringly at his earnest countenance:
"Has anything happened? No trifle could have caused you to take the trouble of coming into this wilderness. What have you to say to your little daughter,--is it praise or blame?"
"I am but fulfilling my duty," replied the old lord, "if I make my appearance in order to take your Highness's commands, and to ascertain whether the residence of my gracious Princess is suitably arranged."
"Your Excellency has come to complain," exclaimed the Princess, drawing back, "for you have not one kind word for your little woman."
The High Steward bowed his white head in apology:
"If I appear more serious than usual to your Highness, it is perhaps only the fancies of an old man which have intruded themselves at an unseasonable time. I beg permission to relieve myself of them by discussing them with your Highness. The health of the Sovereign is a cause of anxiety to us all: it reminds us of the transitory nature of life. Even the good humor of Prince Victor does not succeed in dissipating my troubled thoughts."
"How does my cousin?" asked the Princess.
"He overcomes the difficulties of being a Prince in a wonderful way," replied the High Steward; "but he is sound to the core; he knows very well how to manage serious things cleverly. I rejoice," added the courtier, "that my gracious Princess feels warmly towards a cousin who is faithfully devoted to her Highness."
"He has always been true and kind to me," said the Princess, indifferently. "But now you have punished me severely enough. What you have to say to me confidentially must not be carried on in this way."
She took a chair, and pushed it into the middle of the room.
"Here, sit down, my worthy lord, and allow me to hold the hand of my friend when he tells me what makes him anxious on my account."
She fetched herself a low tabouret, held the right hand of the old lord between hers, looking earnestly into his eyes.
"Your Highness knows the way of giving me courage to make bold requests," said the courtier, laughing.
"That is more to the purpose," said the Princess, relieved; "I now hear the voice and hold the hand of him in whom I most love to trust."
"But I wish for your Highness a nearer and stronger support than myself," began the old lord, earnestly.
The Princess started.
"So it was that which occasioned your Excellency's journey?" she exclaimed, with agitation.
"That was the anxiety which occupied me. It is nothing--nothing more than an idea," said the High Steward, inclining his head.
"And is that to tranquilize me more?" asked the Princess. "What has hitherto given me the power to live but your Excellency's ideas?"
"When your Highness, while still in widow's weeds, was called home, the wish of the Sovereign, making it a duty to attend upon you, was welcome to me; because I thereby obtained the right of carrying on this conversation with your Highness."
He motioned with his hand to the seat, and the Princess again hastened to place herself by his side.
"Now when I see your Highness before me in the bright bloom of youth, richly gifted and fitted to confer the greatest happiness on others and to partake of it yourself, I cannot forbear thinking that it is wrong for you to be debarred from the pleasures of home."
"I have enjoyed this happiness and have lost it," exclaimed the Princess. "Now I have accustomed myself to the thought of renouncing much. I seek for myself a compensation which even you will not consider unworthy."
"There is a difference between us of more than fifty years. A mode of life, proper for me, an unimportant man, may not be permitted the daughter of a princely house. I beg the permission of my beloved Princess," he continued, with a gentle voice, "to draw aside to-day the curtain which has covered a dark image of your early youth. You were witness of the scene which separated the Sovereign from your illustrious mother."
"It is a dark recollection," whispered the Princess, looking up anxiously at the old lord; "my mother was reproaching the Sovereign,--it was something concerning the fateful Pavilion. The Sovereign got into a state of excitement that was fearful. I, then but a little girl, ran up and embraced the knees of my mother; he dragged me off, and--" the Princess covered her eyes. The old lord made a motion to stop her, and continued:
"The after-effect of the scene was ruinous to the life of a noble woman, and also to that of yourself. Then for the first time the diseased irritability which has since darkened the Sovereign's spirit displayed itself; from that day the Sovereign sees in you the living witness of his guilt and his disease. He has for years endeavored to wipe away from you that impression by kindness and attentions, but he has never believed himself to be successful. Shame, suspicion, and fear have continually ruined his relations with you. He will not let you go away from him, because he fears that in your confidence to another man you might betray what he would fain conceal from himself. He unwillingly gave in to the first marriage, and he will oppose a second, for he does not wish to see your Highness married again. But in the hours when dark clouds lie over his extraordinary spirit, he rejoices in the thought that your Highness might lose the right of secretly reproaching him. The thought that he did an injury to the princely dignity of his wife gnaws within him, and he is now occupied with the idea that your Highness might under certain circumstances forget your position as princess."
"He hopes in vain," exclaimed the Princess, excitedly. "Never will I allow myself to be degraded by an unworthy passion; it has not been without effect that I have been the child of your cares."
"What is unworthy of a princess?" asked the High Steward, reflectively. "That your Highness would keep yourself free from the little passions which are excited in the quadrille of a masked ball there can be no doubt. But intellectual pastime with subjects of great interest might also disturb the life of a woman. Easily does the most refined intellectual enjoyment pass into extravagance. More than once has the greatest danger of a woman been when under powerful external excitement, she has felt herself to be higher, freer, nobler than her wont. It is difficult to listen to entrancing music and to preserve oneself from a warm interest in the artist who has produced it for us."
The Princess looked down.
"Supposing the case," continued the High Steward, "in which a diseased man, in bitter humor, should meditate and work for such an object, the sound person should guard himself from doing his will."
"But they should also not allow themselves to be disturbed in what they consider for the honor and advantage of their life?" cried the Princess, looking up at the old man.
"Certainly not," replied the latter, "if such benefits are in fact to be gained by the playful devotion of a woman to art or learning. It would be difficult for a princess to find satisfaction in this way. No one blames a woman of the people when she makes a great talent the vocation of her life; she may satisfy herself as singer or painter and please others, and the whole world will smile upon her. But if my gracious Princess should employ her rich musical talent in giving a public concert, why would men shrug their shoulders at it? Not because your Highness's talent is less than that of another artist, but because one expects other objects in your life; the nation forms very distinct ideal demands of its princes. If, unfortunately, the ruling princes of our time do not find it easy to answer to this ideal, yet to the ladies of these illustrious families the serious tendency of the present day makes this more possible than in my youth. A princess of our people ought to be the noble model of a good housewife,--nothing more and nothing else: true and right-minded, firmly attached to her husband, careful in her daily duties, warm hearted to the needy, kind and sympathizing to all who have the privilege of approaching her. If she has intellect, she must beware of wishing to shine; if she has a talent for business, she must guard herself from becoming an intrigante. Even the great social talent of virtuosoship she must exercise with the greatest discretion. A well-weighed balance of female excellence is the best ornament of a princess; her highest honor, that she is better and more lovable than others, without parading it, with goodness and capacity in everything, and with no pretensions of any kind. For she stands too high to seek conquest and acquisition for herself."
The Princess sat near the speaker, her head supported on her arm, looking sorrowfully before her.
"My beloved Princess does not hear me speak in this way for the first time," continued the Lord High Steward. "I have often felt anxious about the dangers which a high-flown spirit and active fancy prepare for you, the cradle gift of an envious fairy, who has made your Highness too brilliant and attractive. It is owing to these brilliant gifts that you have not the same aristocratic nature as your illustrious brother, the Hereditary Prince. There is too lively a desire in you to make yourself appreciated, and to influence others. One can leave your brother with full confidence to his own good nature. Every attempt to persuade the soul of the much-tormented child has come to naught. But you, that delicate artistic work of nature which now gazes at me with those open eyes, I have endeavored constantly to guard from an over-refined coquetry of sentiment. I am now the severe admonisher to high duties, because I anticipate the dangers which this love of conquest in your soul will bring upon yourself and others."
"I hear a severe reproof in loving words," replied the Princess, with composure. "I should marry again in order to become distinguished."
"My dear Highness, I wish that you may obtain this great aim as the wife of a husband who is not unworthy of your devotion. Only in this way can a princess expect true happiness. Even this happiness cannot be gained without self-denial, I know it; it is difficult to every one to control themselves. To those who are born in the purple this virtue is ten times more difficult than to others. Forgive me," he continued, "I have become talkative, as often happens to us old people at Court."
"You have not said too much, my friend, nor too little," said the Princess, much moved. "I have always cherished the hope to live on quietly for myself, surrounded by men who would teach me the highest things that it is possible for a woman to acquire. On this path also I find tender duties, noble bonds which unite me with the best, and such a life also would not be unworthy of a princess; more than one have, in former times, chosen this lot, and posterity respects them."
"Your Highness does not mean Queen Christina of Sweden," replied the High Steward. "But to others also this lot has seldom been a blessing. Your Highness must remember that when a princess surrounds herself with wise men, she means always one man who is to her the wisest."
The Princess was silent, and looked down.
"We have now long discussed the possible position of a princess," began the old gentleman; "let us now consider the fate of the men who would be united by tender bonds to the life of an illustrious lady. Granted that she should succeed in finding a friend, who, without unseemly pretensions, would attach himself with self-denial and real devotion to the active and varied life of a princess. He must sacrifice much and forego much; the right of the husband is that the wife should devote herself to him, but in this case a man must fetter the powers,--nay, even the passions of his nature,--for a woman who would not belong to him, whom he could only cautiously approach at certain hours as a friend unto friend; who would consider him at first, to a certain extent, as a valuable possession and a beautiful ornament, but finally, under the best circumstances, as a useful bit of furniture. The greatest sufferer in such a position would be the artist or scholar. I have always felt compassion for the walking dictionaries of a princely household. Even men of great talent then resemble the philosophers of ancient Rome, who, with the long beard and the mantle of their schools, pass through the streets in the train of some distinguished lady."
The Princess rose, and turned away.
"Better, undoubtedly, is the situation of the man," concluded the High Steward, "whose personality allows him to guide, by silent work, the life-current of his high-born friend. Yet even he must not only himself lose much of what is most delightful in life, but, even with the purest intentions, he will not always be able to give pleasure to his princess. He who would be more than a faithful servant diminishes the security of his princely mistress. Should such chivalrous devotion be offered, a noble woman should hesitate to accept it, but to endeavor to attract it does not become a princess."
Tears rushed to the eyes of the Princess, and she turned quickly to the old man.
"I know such a life," she exclaimed; "one that has been passed in unceasing self-denial--a blessing to three ladies of our family. O my father, I know well what you have been to us; have patience with your poor ward. I struggle against your words; it is a hard task for me to listen to you, and yet I know that you are the only secure support that I have ever had in this life. Your admonitions alone have preserved me from destruction."
Again she seized his hand, and her head sank on his shoulder.
"I loved your grandmother," replied the old man, with trembling voice; "it was at a time when such things were lightly thought of. It was a pure connection; I lived for her; I made daily self-sacrifice for her. She was unhappy, for she was the wife of another, and her holiest duties were made difficult to her by my life. I guarded your mother like an anxious servant, but I could not prevent her from being unhappy and dying with the feeling of her misery. And now I hold the third generation to my heart, and before I am called away I would like to impress my life and the sufferings of your mother as a lesson on you. I have never been so anxious about you as I am now. If my dear child has ever felt the heart of a fatherly friend in my words, she should not lightly esteem my counsel now, whatever brilliant dreams it may dispel."
"I will think of your words," exclaimed the Princess. "I will endeavor to resign my wishes; but, father, my kind father, it will be very hard for me."
The old gentleman collected himself, and interrupted her.
"It is enough," he said, with the composure that befitted his office; "your Highness has shown me great consideration to-day. There are others who also desire their share of your Highness's favor."
There was a knock at the door. The waiting-woman entered.
"The servant announces that Lady Gotlinde and the gentlemen are waiting in the tea-room."
"I have still some business with his Excellency," answered the Princess, gently. "I must beg Gotlinde to take my place in entertaining our guest."
Evening had descended upon the castle-tower, the bats flew from their hiding-places in the vacant room; they whirled about in circles, astonished that they had awoke in an empty habitation. The owls flew into the crevices of the tower, and searched with their round eyes after the old arm-chairs, on which they had formerly waited for the stupid mice; and the death-watch, which the scholar had carried down from the lonely room, gnawed and ticked on the staircase and in the rooms of the castle among living men. The rain beat against the walls, and the stormy wind howled round the tower. The wife of the scholar was driving through the night, flying like a hunted hare; but he was pacing up and down his room, dreamily forming from the discovered leaves the whole lost manuscript. And again he wondered within himself that it looked quite different from what he had imagined it for years.
The wind also howled about the princely castle at the capital, and large drops of rain beat against the window; there, also, the powers of nature raged and demanded entrance into the firm fortress of man. The darkness of the night seemed to pervade the halls and the decorated rooms like gloomy smoke; only the lamps in the pleasure-grounds threw their pale light through the window, and made the desolate look of the room still more dreary. The melancholy tones of the castle clock sounded through the house, announcing that the first hour of the new day was come. Then again silence, desolate silence, everywhere; only a pale glimmer from the distance on the covers of the chandeliers and the golden ornaments of the walls. Sometimes there was a crackling in the parquet of the floor, and a draught of wind blew through an open pane upon the curtains, which hung black round the window like funeral drapery. Here and there fell a scanty ray of light on the wall, where hung the portraits of the ancestors of the princely house in the dress of their time. Many generations had dwelt in these rooms; stately men and beautiful women had danced here. Wine had been poured out in golden goblets; gracious words, festive speeches, and the soft murmur of love, had been heard here; the splendor of every former age had been outdone by the richer adornment of later ones. Now everything had vanished and withered; the darkness of night and of death hung over the bright colors. All those who had once moved about and rejoiced in the brilliant throng, had passed away into the depths. Nothing now remained of these hours but a dreary void and dismal stillness, and one single figure which glided about on the smooth floor, noiseless like a ghost. It was the lord of this castle. His head bent forward as in a dream, he passed along by the pictures of his ancestors.
"The timid doe has escaped," he whispered; "the panther made too short a spring: in rage and shame he now creeps back to his den. The powerful beast could not conceal his claws. The chase is over; it is time to set at rest the beatings of this breast. It was only a woman--a small, unknown human life. But the jade Fancy had bound my senses to her body; to her alone belonged whatever remained in me of warmth and devotion to human kind."
He stopped before a picture, on which fell the gloomy light of an expiring lamp.
"You, my steel-clad ancestor, know what the feeling is of him who flies from home and court, and has to give up to his enemy what is dear to him. When you fled from the castle of your fathers, a homeless fugitive, pursued by a pack of foreign mercenaries, there was misery in your heart, and you cast back a wild curse behind you. Still poorer does your descendant feel, who now glides fleeting through the inheritance that you have left him. To you remained hope in your hard heart; but I to-day have lost all that is worth the effort of life. She has escaped my guards. Where to? To her father's house on the rock! Cursed be the hour when I, deceived by her words, sent the boy among those mountains."
He dragged himself onward.
"The third station on the road to the end," he meditated, "is idle and empty play, and puerile tricks. So said the learned pedant. It coincides; I am transformed into a childish caricature of my nature. Miserable was the texture of the net which I drew around her; a firm will could have broken it in a moment. He was right; the game was childish: by a stroke of a quill I wished to hold him fast, and, before the art of the Magister had accomplished its purpose, I disturbed the success of the scheme by the trembling haste of my passion. When the news comes to him that his wife has fled, he also will pack up his books, and mock me at a safe distance. Bad player, who approached the gaming-table with a good method, to put piece after piece on the green cloth, and who in his madness flung down his purse and lost all in one throw. Curses upon him and me! He must not escape from me; he must not see her. Yet, what use is there in keeping him, unless I encase his limbs in iron, or conceal his body below, where we shall all be concealed when others obtain the power of doing what they will with us? You lie. Professor, when you compare me to your old Emperors. I am alarmed at the thought of things which they did laughing, and my brain refuses to think of what was once commanded by a short gesture of the hand. A ball and dice for two," he continued; "that is a merry game, invented by men of my sort; as it turns up, one falls and the other escapes. We will throw the dice. Professor, to see which of us shall do his opponent the last service; and I will greet you, dreamer, if I am the fortunate one that is carried to rest. Does thy wit, philosopher, extend far enough to see thy fate, as happened to that old astrologer, of whom thy Tiberius inquired about his own future? Let us try how wise you are."
He again stood still, and looked restlessly on the dark pictures.
"You shake your heads, you silent figures; many of you have done injury to others; but you are all honorably interred, with mourning marshals and funeral horses. Songs have been sung in your honor, and learned men have framed Latin elegies, and sighed that the golden shower has ceased that fell upon them from your hands. There stands one of you," he exclaimed, gazing with fixed eyes on a corner; "there hovers the spirit of woe, the dark shadow that passes through this house when misfortune approaches it--guilt and atonement It passes along bodiless to frighten fools, an apparition of my diseased mind. I see it raise its hand--it scares me. I am terrified at the images of my own brain. Away!" he called out, aloud, "away! I am the lord of this house."
He ran through the room and stumbled; the black shadow hastened behind him. The Sovereign fell upon the floor. He cried aloud for help through the desolate space. A valet hastened from the anteroom. He found his master lying on the ground.
"I heard a shrill cry," said the Sovereign, raising himself up; "who was it that screamed above my head?"
The servant replied, trembling:
"I know not who it was. I heard the cry, and hastened hither."
"It was myself, I suppose," the master returned, in a faltering tone; "my weakness overcame me."
In the early morning the Professor called to the Castellan, and rushed up the staircase of the tower. He went about the room, pushing boards and planks in all directions; he found many forgotten chests, but not that which he sought. He made the Castellan open each of the adjoining rooms; went through garrets and cellars; he examined the forester, who lived in a house near by, but the latter could give him no information. When the Scholar again entered his room, he laid his head on his hands; prolonged disappointment and the consciousness of his impotence overmastered him. But he chid and restrained himself.
"I have lost too much of the cool circumspection which Fritz said was the highest virtue of a collector. I must accustom myself to the thought of self-resignation, and calmly examine the hopes which still remain. I must not be ungrateful also for the little I have gained."
He could not sit quietly by the discovered leaves, but paced thoughtfully up and down. He heard voices in the court-yard; hasty running in the passages; and at last a lackey announced the arrival of the Sovereign, and that he wished to see the Professor at breakfast.
The table was spread among blooming bushes on the side of the tower that faced the rising sun. When the Professor entered under the roof which protected the place from rain and the rays of the sun, he found there, besides the household and Marshal, the forest officials and the Lord High Steward, who thought, with more anxiety than the Professor, of the sudden arrival of the Sovereign. The old lord approached the Scholar, and spoke on indifferent subjects.
"How long do you think of remaining here?" he asked, politely.
"I shall request permission to return to the city in an hour; I have accomplished what I had to do."
It was a long time before the princely party appeared. When the Sovereign approached them, all present were struck by his ill appearance: his movements were hurried, his features disturbed, and his looks passed unsteadily over the company. He turned first to the forester, who was in attendance, and asked him, harshly:
"How can you tolerate the disagreeable screaming of the daws on the tower? It was your business to remove them."
"Her Highness the Princess last summer requested that the birds be left."
"The noise is insupportable to me," said the Sovereign; "bring out the weapons, and prepare yourself to shoot among them."
As the practice of shooting was one of the regular country pleasures of the Court, and the Sovereign had, even in the neighborhood of the castle, frequently used his gun on birds of prey or other unusual objects, the Court thought less seriously of this commission than did the Scholar.
The Sovereign turned to the Lord High Steward.
"I am surprised to find your Excellency here," he said; "I did not know that you too had taken leave of absence for this quiet life."
"My gracious master would have been surprised if I had not done my duty. It was my intention to have reported to your Highness to-day at the palace concerning the health of the Princess."
"So it was for that," said the Sovereign. "I had forgotten that my Lord High Steward is never weary of his office of guardian."
"An office that one has exercised almost half a century in the service of the illustrious family becomes in fact a habit," replied the High Steward. "Your Highness has heretofore judged with kind consideration the zeal of a servant who is anxious to make himself useful."
The Sovereign turned to the Marshal, and asked, in a suppressed voice:
"Will he remain?"
The Marshal replied, distressed:
"I could obtain no promise, nor even a wish from him."
"I knew it already," replied the Sovereign, hoarsely. He turned to the Professor, and violently forced himself to assume a friendly demeanor, as he said: "I have heard from my daughter of your campaign against broken chairs. I wish to have some talk with you alone about it."
They sat down to table. The Sovereign gazed vacantly before him, and drank several glasses of wine; the Princess also sat silent, the conversation flagged, the High Steward alone became talkative. He asked about a bust of Winkelmann, and spoke of the lively interest which the nation took in the fate of their intellectual leaders.
"It must be an agreeable feeling," he said, politely, to the Professor, "to be in a certain measure under the protection of the whole civilized world. In the majority of cases the private life of our great men of learning passes away uneventfully, but our people delight in occupying themselves with the course of life of those who have departed. If happy accident brings a person into contact with gentlemen of your standing, he must take care that he does not suffer for all eternity under the hands of later biographers. I confess," he continued, laughing, "that a fear on this point has robbed me of many interesting acquaintances."
The Professor answered, quietly:
"The people are conscious that they have by the labor of scholars first been raised from misery; but with greater experience in political life, their interest in the promoters of our present culture will assume more moderate proportions."
"I have told the Sovereign that you have found something here," remarked the Princess, across the table.
"There has been a remarkable discovery made in an ancient sepulchre," interrupted the High Steward; and he gave a diffuse account of a funeral urn.
But now the Sovereign himself turned to the Scholar.
"Surely you may hope to find the rest?"
"Unfortunately, I do not know where to search further," replied the Professor.
"What you have found, then," continued the Sovereign, with self-control, "is unimportant."
It did not please the Professor that the conversation should again turn upon the manuscript; he felt annoyed at having to talk about his Romans.
"It is a few chapters from the sixth book of the Annals," he replied, with reserve.
"When your Highness was at Pompeii," interposed the High Steward, "the inscriptions on the walls attracted your attention. In those days a beautiful treatise upon the subject came into my hands; it is fascinating to observe the lively people of lower Italy in the unrestrained expression of their love and their hatred. One feels oneself transplanted as vividly into the old time by the naïve utterances of the common people, as if one took a newspaper in one's hand that had been written centuries ago. If any one had told the citizens of Pompeii that at the end of eighteen centuries it would be known who they, in accidental ill-humor, had treated with hostility, they would hardly have believed it. We indeed are more cautious."
"That was the hatred of insignificant people," replied the Sovereign, absently. "Tacitus knew nothing of that, he only concerned himself about the scandal of the court. Probably he also held office."
The Princess looked uneasily at the Sovereign.
"Is there anything in the contents of the parchment leaves which would be interesting to us ladies?" she said, endeavoring to turn the conversation.
"Nothing new," replied the Scholar. "As I had the honor of telling your Highness, the same passage was already known to us from an Italian manuscript: it is about small events in the Roman senate."
"Quarrels of the assembled fathers," interposed the Sovereign, carelessly. "They were miserable slaves. Is that all?"
"At the end, there is another anecdote of the last years of Tiberius. The disturbed mind of the prince clung to astrology: he called astrologers to him to Capri, and caused those to be cast into the sea whom he suspected of deceit. Even the prudent Trasyllus was taken to him over the fatal rock path, and he announced the concealed secret of the Imperial life. Then the Emperor furtively asked of him whether he knew what would happen to himself that day? The philosopher inquired of the stars, and called out, trembling: 'My situation is critical; I see myself in danger of death.' At this passage our fragment breaks off. The incident may have been repeated--the same anecdote attaches to more than one princely life."
A couple of daws flew round the battlements of the tower, they cawed and screamed, and told one another that underneath there stood a sportsman who was seeking his game. The Sovereign suddenly arose.
"There must be an end to the screaming of these birds."
He beckoned to the forester. The man approached, and placed a weapon in his hands. The Sovereign placed the but-end on the ground and turned to the Professor, while the Princess, disquieted by the last words of the Scholar, stood aside with her suite, struggling for composure.
"The Princess has told me," began the Sovereign, "that you have some hesitation as to fulfilling a wish that we have all much at heart. I hope that the hindrances may not be insurmountable."
"It becomes me," replied the Professor, delighted by the kind words of the Sovereign, "to weigh calmly so honorable a proposal. But I have other things to take into account besides the cause of learning."
"What others?" asked the Sovereign.
"The wish of a loved wife," said the Professor. A sudden convulsion shook the limbs of the Sovereign.
"And how do you consider your relations to me?" asked the Sovereign, in a hoarse voice.
The Scholar looked at the man, from whose eyes darted a look of deadly hatred and malignity. He saw the muzzle of the weapon directed toward his breast, and the raised foot of the Sovereign feeling for the trigger. The flash of lightning impended, there was no room for flight, no time for movement; the thought of the last moment passed through his mind. He saw before him the distorted countenance of the Emperor Tiberius, and he said, in a low voice:
"I stand on the verge of death."
"The Sovereign is sinking," called out the High Steward.
He threw himself with outstretched arms towards his master, and seized his hands. The Sovereign tottered, the weapon fell to the ground, he himself was received in the arms of those who hastened toward him. The Princess flew up to them, and looked inquiringly into the pale face of the Scholar.
"The Sovereign has been attacked by a sudden dizziness," answered the latter calmly.
"My master is losing consciousness," cried the High Steward. "How are you, Mr. Werner?"
The hands of the old man trembled. The Sovereign lay senseless in the arms of his attendants, and was carried to the castle.
The by-standers expressed with much concern their terror at the event and the Princess hastened after the stricken Sovereign. Before the High Steward followed, he said to the Professor, whilst giving him a searching look:
"It is not the first time that the Sovereign has been taken ill in such a manner. Was that a surprise to you? You did not know that the Sovereign was suffering in this way?"
"I know it to-day," replied the Scholar, coldly.
A few minutes afterwards the High Steward entered the room of the Professor, who was preparing for his journey.
"I come to beg your indulgence," began the High Steward; "for I must trouble you with an acknowledgment which is painful to me. You have talked much lately in my presence to the Sovereign of the Cæsarian madness of the Roman emperors. What you then said was very instructive to me."
"I now find," replied the Professor, gloomily, "that the place was ill chosen."
"More than you assume," replied the courtier, drily. "To me it was peculiarly instructive, but not so much what you said as that you said it. I should not have thought it possible that any one would so acutely reason upon the past, and so completely give up all judgment of that which was around him. You then told a sick man the story of his own disease."
"I have just discovered that," replied the Scholar.
"The Sovereign is diseased in mind. It is now necessary that you should know it. I have a second confession to make to you. I discover that I have misjudged you."
"I shall be glad if your present opinion is more favorable to me than the former one," replied the Professor, with dignity.
"In your point of view, yes," continued the High Steward. "I have for a long time regarded you in your relations here as a cautious man, who was cleverly following out his objects. I have learnt that you are not that, but something different."
"An honorable man, your Excellency," replied the Professor.
"We have nothing to reproach one another with," rejoined the courtier, bowing; "as you misjudged the Sovereign, so did I misunderstand you; but my mistake is the greater, for I am an older man, and I have not the excuse of a specially intellectual mind, which sometimes makes it difficult for a man to judge correctly of other natures. But we have both one excuse. It is seldom easy to form a just estimate of those who have grown up in other circles, and show a different combination of virtues and weaknesses. We are all liable to be confused in our judgment, according as our self-respect is satisfied or wounded. Where genial tendencies find no response, displeasure erects a barrier; and where powerful tones echo sympathetically to one's breast, there is the danger of too rapid intimacy. Thus I have put too low a value on your honorable openness and candor. I now pay the penalty, for I have to confide to you a secret that I have no doubt you will accept with proper regard."
"I assume that your Excellency does not make this communication to me without a specific cause."
"There is a plan for keeping you in our city," interposed the High Steward.
"Proposals of this nature have been made to me since yesterday."
The High Steward continued: "It is not necessary for me to be anxious about your answer. You have learnt the meaning which is concealed under a veil of civility. Do you know why the Sovereign made you the proposal?"
"No; up to this morning I have not doubted that a certain personal feeling of kindness, and the view that I might be useful here, were the motives."
"You are mistaken," replied the High Steward. "It is not a wish to keep you here merely for passing private interests. The real motive is, as appears to me, the freak of a diseased mind, which sees in you an opponent, and fears a sharp-sightedness that will remorselessly disclose to the world a diseased spirit. You were to be fettered here; you were to be cajoled, watched, and persecuted. You are an object of interest, of fear, and of aversion."
The Professor rose.
"What I have experienced and what you tell me compel me to leave this place instantly."
"I do not wish," said the High Steward, "that you shall depart from here with displeasure, if this can be avoided; both on your own account and for the sake of many of us."
The Professor went to the table, on which lay the parchment leaves.
"I beg your indulgence if I do not regain my composure immediately. The situation in which we are placed is like that of a distant century; it stands in fearful contrast to the cheerful security with which we are wont to consider our own lives and the souls of our contemporaries."
"Cheerful security?" asked the High Steward, sorrowfully. "In courts, at least, you must not seek this, nor under any circumstances in which the individual passes out of private life. Cheerful security! I must ask whether we have it in this century? It would be difficult to find a time in which there is so much that is insecure; in which the old is so decayed, and the new so weak."
The Professor raised his head, astonished at the bitter complaints of the old man. The High Steward continued, indignantly:
"I hear everywhere of the hopes that one has in the nation, and I see an abundance of young student-like confidence. There is not much mature power, and I do not blame a sanguine man if he places his hopes on it; nay, I even admit that this youthful spirit is in fact the best hope that we have. But I am an old man; I cannot among these novelties find anything that commands my respect, where they affect the interests of private life. I feel the decay of vital power in the air which surrounds me. My youth belonged to a time when the best culture of the nation was to be found at Court. My own ancestors have for six centuries taken an eager part in the follies and crimes, and also in the pride, of their times; and I have grown to be a man in the conception that princes and nobles were the born leaders of the nation. I see with sorrow that they have for long, perhaps for ever, lost this lead. Much of what you lately said exactly coincides with the last decades that I have passed through. It has been a sorrowful time; the hollow weakness in the life of the people has in a great measure deteriorated the higher classes. But there has not been altogether a deficiency of honorable and powerful men. What time has been entirely without them? But what should be the noblest blossom of the national strength is just what in this empty shallow time is most deeply diseased."
The Professor interposed:
"It is a cause for sorrow; but where, perhaps, the individual loses, the whole gains?"
"Undoubtedly not," replied the courtier; "if only the gain to the whole was certain. But I see with astonishment that the greatest concerns of the nation are carried on, on all sides, with school-boyish pettiness. Much that is valuable is lost; nothing better is gained. The delicacy of feeling which formerly expressed itself beneficially in all forms of intercourse, and the discreet management of important affairs, become rare. If these advantages did not suffice to form the character, as is perhaps needed in the present, they made life pleasing and beautiful. A secure feeling of superiority, and a gracious rule over others, was general at courts and in business; of this we are deprived. Diplomacy has ceased to be distinguished. One sets bluntly to work; not only nobleness of feeling, but even the pleasing show of it is wanting; an uncertain pettiness, a grumbling, irritable, reserved character has gained the upper hand at courts, and in diplomacy ill-bred frivolity, without knowledge and without manly will. Our princes rattle about like accoutred idlers; the old court discipline is lost, and one feels oneself incessantly on the defensive, and seeks for safety in senseless attacks. It is impossible not to feel that by these acts one is irretrievably going downward."
The Professor smiled at the sorrow of the old lord.
"I do not blame you," continued the High Steward, "if you do not feel the misfortune of this change as deeply as I do. It is only a pity that it should always be the highest earthly interests which are thus trifled with."
"But is this misfortune so general?" replied the Professor.
"Some splendid exceptions have not been wanting," said the High Steward; "some were granted us at a time when we played the greatest tragedy before the world, as if here and there to preserve a bright romance. They have scarcely been wanting in a country which possesses the five qualities which are necessary to form a good court: an upright sovereign, an amiable princess, a high-minded statesman, some intellectual court ladies, and a superior spirit among the cavaliers. But these requisites are seldom found."
"Were they ever frequent?"
"They were the pride of our nation at the time from which my earliest recollections date," replied the High Steward.
"Just at this time we gained something else of which we may still be proud," rejoined the Scholar. "There was a short period during which the Court became the home of the most liberal culture of the time, and it was only through the rare political circumstances of our nation that this leadership was possible. Now it has passed into other circles, and we have exchanged the increased capacity of many for the distinguished culture of individuals."
"In this also there is a loss," returned the High Steward; "distinguished men have become rare. I am ready to acknowledge the advance which the citizen classes have made in the last fifty years. But the capacity which a people develop in trade and commerce is seldom united with secure self-respect, nay, seldom also with that firmly-established position which is necessary to political strength. Too frequently we find a wavering between discontented insolence and over-great subserviency; covetousness abounds, and self-sacrifice is small. Wealth increases everywhere; who can deny that? But not in the same degree a comprehension of the highest interests of the nation."
"Time will improve," rejoined the Scholar, "and our sons will become firmer and freer; here too our future belongs to those who work laboriously."
"Much may be lost," said the High Steward, "before the improvement which you expect becomes great enough to secure to those who are struggling onward a salutary and active participation in the affairs of government. I am too old to nourish myself with hopes, and therefore cannot adopt your sanguine conception of our situation. I wish for the good of our nation, in whatever way it may come. I know it has passed through crises more critical than its present swaying between a decaying and a rising culture. But I feel that the air in which I live is growing more sultry; the tense excitement of contrast more dangerous. When I look back on a long life, I sometimes feel horror at the moral pestilence that I have contemplated. It was not a time of gigantic vices like your Imperial era, but it was a time in which, after short poetic dreams, the weakness of petty souls ruled and brought distraction. The figures which in this lamentable time have passed away will appear to posterity, not fearful, but grotesque and contemptible. You, Professor, live in a new epoch in which a younger generation awkwardly endeavors to rise. I have no sympathy for the new style. I have not the courage to hope, for I have no power to promote the culture of the younger generation."
He had risen. The old man and the young, vigorous man, the diplomat and the scholar, stood opposite to each other; the one an advocate for the world which was tending downwards; the other a proclaimer of a teaching which was unceasingly to renew the old world; secret sorrow lay on the calm countenance of the old man, and feeling, vigorous feeling, worked in the animated features of the younger: a high mind and a refined spirit were visible in the open countenance of both.
"What we had to say to one another," continued the High Steward, "is said. I have endeavored to make amends for my mistake in regard to you. May the gossiping openness with which I have exposed myself to your judgment be some small compensation for my having been so long silent. It is the best satisfaction that I can give to a man of your sort. As respects the diseased state of mind of others, which was the subject of our conversation, there need be no further words between us; both of us will endeavor to do what is our duty concerning the men that are entrusted to our care, to preserve them from danger and to guard ourselves. Mr. Werner, farewell. May the occupation which you have chosen preserve your joyful confidence in your time and your generation for as many years as I bear on my head. This highest happiness of man, I, an insignificant individual, have painfully felt the want of, as did your great Roman."
"Allow me, your Excellency, to express one request to you," replied the Scholar, with warm feeling. "Often may the unpractical activity of the new apostles evoke a bitter smile from you, and the unfinished work which we pioneers of learning throw off will not always satisfy the demands which you make upon us; but when you are compelled to blame us, remember, with forbearance, that our nation can only bear within it the guaranty of renewing youth so long as it does not lose respect for intellectual aspiration, and retains its simple honesty, in love and hate. So long as the nation renews itself, it may inspire its princes and leaders with new life; for we are not Romans, but staunch and warm-hearted Germans."
"Nero no longer ventures to burn the apostles of a new doctrine," replied the High Steward, with a sad smile. "May I say something kindly from you to the Sovereign, as far as is compatible with your dignity?"
"I beg you to do so," replied the Professor.
The Professor hastened to take leave of the Princess. She received him in the presence of her ladies and the Marshal. Few words were exchanged. Upon expressing the hope of seeing him soon again at the capital, speech almost forsook her. When he had left the room, she flew up to her library and looked down on the carriage into which the chest was being put. She plucked some flowers which the gardener had placed in her room, and fastened them together with a ribbon.
"His eye looked upon you, and his voice sounded in the narrow halls in which you are passing your life. It was a short dream! No, not a dream, a beautiful picture from a new world."
"As the womanly heart submits, in loving devotion, to the stronger mind of a life-companion, her eye fixed upon his, such is the happiness of which I have had a presage. Only once has my hand touched his, but I feel as if I had lain on his heart, invisible, bodiless. No one knows it, not even himself, I alone felt the happiness. Light, airy bond, woven of the tenderest threads that ever were drawn from one human soul to another, thou must be torn and blown away! Only the consciousness remains that the inclination which drew two strangers together has been forever a blessing to one of them.
"You, earnest man, go on your path, and I on mine; and if accident should bring us together, then we shall bow civilly to each other, and greet one another with courtly speeches. Farewell, my scholar. When I meet with one of your associates, I shall henceforth know that he belongs to the silent community, in whose porch I have humbly bowed my head."
From the tops of the trees on which the princely child was looking down the birds were singing. The carriage rolled away; she bent down, and held the nosegay with outstretched hand; then with a powerful swing she threw the flowers on to the top of a tree; they hung among the leaves; a little bird flew out, but the next moment he again perched by the nosegay, and continued his song. But the Princess leaned her head against the wall of the tower.
The Scholar drove to the city with the chest he had found beside him. More rapid and stormy than on his coming were the thoughts that flitted through his soul; he hastened the coachman, and an indefinite anxiety fixed his looks on the rising towers of the capital. But amidst all, he ever saw the figure of the High Steward before him, and heard the sorrowful words of his soft voice.
"Immeasurably great is the difference between the narrow relations of this Court and the mighty greatness of Imperial Rome; immeasurably great also the difference between the troubled Court lord and the gloomy power of a Roman senator. And yet there is something in the structure of the soul that has this day displayed itself to me which reminds me of a figure from a time long past; and what he said sounds in my soul like a feeble tone from the heart of the man whose work I seek in vain. For just as we endeavor to explain the present from the past, so do we interpret circumstances and figures of a past time in the light of the men that live around us. The past unceasingly sends its spirit into our souls, and we unceasingly adapt the past to conform to the needs of our hearts."