The secret spring

III

ONE morning in December I was snugly ensconced by my big log fire, preparing a lesson for the afternoon. There was a dry, cold snap in the air, and the pale winter sun was dissolving, the night's mist in opal drops on my windows.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Outside stood Otto, an ex-non-commissioned officer and head-butler, in fact, the connecting link between the palace officials and the horde of valets, workmen and supers whom he had under his orders. His white shirt-front and round red face stood out sharply against the dark background of the corridor. Behind him loomed two men bearing some strange bundles.

"Excuse me, Herr Professor. I hope I am not disturbing you?"

"No, Otto. What is it?"

He came in, followed by the two men, who had their arms full of bunches of flags.

"Tomorrow is the fête-day of the 7th Lautenburg Hussars, Herr Professor. The town takes a holiday. We decorate the whole palace, and I have come to arrange your three windows."

I looked out. The Königsplatz was, indeed, dotted with tiny figures bustling about with the multifarious paraphernalia of public rejoicings, tall poles, bunches of flags and streamers.

"Go ahead, by all means."

Very deliberately they set to work. Three huge shields, with the German imperial standard between the white and red flag of Würtemberg and the Lautenburg-Detmold banner (a golden leopard on a black and white ground) were duly erected. The whole was then linked to the other windows by festoons of enormous green garlands like laurel wreaths at prize-givings.

Standing there supervising, Otto described to me the next day's ceremony.

"It is always a very big affair, Herr Professor. Tonight the palace will be lit up, and there will be a torchlight procession on the arrival of His Majesty the King of Würtemberg and His Excellency General von Eichhorn, who is representing His Majesty the Kaiser."

"Is the Kaiser represented at every regimental fête?"

"Not all, Herr Professor, but the 7th Hussars is not a regiment like others. Its flag is decorated. Prince Eitel is a captain in it, and most important of all, its colonel is Her Highness our Grand Duchess, the Emperor's cousin. So you will realize ..."

"I realize, Otto, that it is going to be a very fine affair, and you must have plenty to do."

"You are right, Herr Professor. We have finished now. Come on, you two. We are very grateful for your kindness, Herr Professor."

I appreciated the turn of events which was to enable me to witness one of these magnificent German ceremonies, even more when, about eleven o'clock, a note came up from Major von Kessel. The Prince's tutor informed me that his pupil was to accompany the Grand Duke at the preliminary review of the garrison in the afternoon. He therefore requested me to be good enough to postpone my lesson for a couple of days.

At lunch, Doctor Cyrus Beck, more hoffmannesque than ever, came down late in a state of great excitement. I wanted to get some further information out of him.

"Here's a disgraceful thing," he burst out, enraged. "Have you read this libelous stuff, sir?"

He held out La Peau de Chagrin.

"Libelous stuff?" I said in amazement.

"Yes, silly, libelous nonsense. It takes a frivolous Frenchman to treat certain subjects with such levity. It is science itself that is ridiculed here, sir. Just consider. You spend your life in the study of two or three questions, break retorts, bum your face over crucibles, run innumerable risks of being blown up and your laboratory with you—and all that for a tomfool novelist to come along, and, in a few contemptuous words, which he takes for eternal verities, tell you your business and make you a public laughing-stock."

"I don't know what particular passage of La Peau de Chagrin is responsible for your recriminations," I said, "and I'm afraid, in any case, I'm not competent to defend Balzac on this point. You should know, however, that, generally speaking, he was extremely accurate. The historical parts of his work are an important authority. I once heard a good commercial lawyer say that his descriptions of César Birotteau's bankruptcy and the sale of the Roguin property are masterpieces from the legal point of view. Besides ..."

"Sir," he broke in with rising anger, "neither Law nor History has ever claimed to be an exact science. A superficial intelligence like your Balzac's can easily excel in them. But science, sir ..."

"My dear Herr Beck," I said, a little nettled, "if La Peau de Chagrin can produce such an effect upon you, I wonder what you'll say when you've read La Recherche de l'Absolu? It refers to a certain Balthazar Claës, who, like you studies high matters and with the same wealth of experience as yourself. It is possible that you might discover many valuable suggestions there."

He was not quite certain whether to take me seriously or not; but prudently wrote the title of the book on his cuff. Then his lips went to his spoon, which, in the German fashion, never left the surface of his soup.

"Are you going to the review tomorrow?" I asked.

I expected a formal negative, and my surprise was great when he told me he would not fail to attend the ceremony.

"We have seats reserved in the Royal Stand," he said unctuously, "next to the Corps Diplomatique."

I was very much tickled at the child-like delight of this barrack-room savant at having an official place at a military ceremony. "What a world of difference from our anti-militarist intellectuals," I thought, without knowing for certain which of the two attitudes was the better.

The entire palace was in a state of extreme confusion. Officers in full-dress uniform swarmed like ants. I met Kessel up to the eyes in it.

"The King arrives at nine o'clock," he said. "You should go to the station. It will interest you. Meanwhile, if you like, you can watch the review which the Grand Duke is holding at three o'clock on the parade-ground."

I thanked him, but not wishing to take the gilt off the next day's spectacle, and, if the truth must be told, feeling rather small and absurd among all these folk in brilliant uniforms, I hid myself in the library. There I began to jot down a few notes bearing on the young Duke's next lesson on the history of Alexandrine Philosophy.

When I came out darkness had fallen, and I decided to go for a stroll in the town. It was already illuminated. When I reached the middle of the parade-ground I looked back, and the whole castle appeared before me in a blaze of light. My childish pleasure in the coloured lights and fairy lamps prevented me from noticing that the exhibition did not err on the side of good taste. But in Germany there is always too much of everything except that.

In the centre there was an enormous imperial eagle, ten yards high, carried out in yellow lights. On the left the Würtemberg lion in red, and on the right the Lautenburg lion in green. The difficulty of distinguishing these animals with electric lamps had been a very serious problem for the artist in charge, but in the end a fair measure of success had been achieved.

A confused murmur of admiration rose from the shadowy groups about me. At the far end of the parade-ground the Royal Stand was all ready for the next day's review. The Hanover Strasse, the finest street in Lautenburg, was thronged with people, who were walking up and down on the pavements, as if impelled by some mechanical device. At a given moment the barracks poured out a stream of uniforms. The red tunics of the Lautenburg Hussars blended with the blue of the Detmold Dragoons and the dark jackets of the infantrymen. Students who had come specially from Hanover, flaunted their various caps and duelling scars with an arrogance which vanished quickly whenever they passed an officer. Thanks to the approach of Christmas, the brilliantly-lighted shop-fronts were crammed with a mass of weird and fantastic wares, the childishness of which was enough to make you weep. The provision stores were crammed with geese absurdly decorated with the colours of the twenty-seven German States. A goose adorned with the Rudolstadt blue was cheek by jowl with a goose in Würtemberg red. The pork butchers exhibited pyramids of sausages made in the shape of the most famous public buildings in the Empire—the Reichstag, the Central Station at Berlin, Cologne Cathedral, etc. But the masterpiece was a triumphal arch of lard, with bas-reliefs in red jelly and an entablature of foie gras.

Girls strolled along in parties of three or four, arm in arm, modestly lowering their eyes under the insolent stares of the officers.

I dined at the Lohengrin tavern, the largest and most ornate in Lautenburg. You remember the roundabouts of our childhood. The part reserved for the band and the old blear-eyed, tinsel-covered nag bears a very striking resemblance to a fashionable German tavern. They are the only places, I think, where people can smoke without inconvenience. The clouds of tobacco smoke which rise to the ceiling suggest nothing so much as a rabelaisian Walhalla. It was striking eight when yells of "Hoch! hoch!" in the street brought the diners en masse to the door. Amid a forest of sabres a squadron of dragoons was on its way to the station to act as guard of honour to the King of Würtemberg and General von Eichhorn.

There was such a mob around the station that I gave up any idea of trying to get in. It was from a corner of the Roon Strasse that I managed to get a glimpse, through the hedge of dragoons, of the car in which the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and the King of Würtemberg were sitting opposite my pupil and General von Eichhorn.

I was absolutely deafened by the noise. From one café I had to flee in terror of immediate asphyxiation. Students standing on the table declaimed, sang and bawled out their slogans while tossing off the contents of colossal pewter mugs. Under blinding electric standards in the streets women, dressed in the fashion of 1900, with hats slanting skywards and hopelessly drunk, mingled the eternal pan-German "Hoch!" with suggestive invitations.

As I turned the corner of the Königsplatz, on my way back to the castle, I passed by the officers' mess. For one second the bright window revealed to me the pandemonium within. Through the thick curtain of smoke I caught a glimpse of some thirty men, and, stretched on the table among the flowers and pools of wine, two naked women.

At eight o'clock Pastor Silbermann, at the Tempel in the Siegstrasse, and Monsignor Kreppel in the Cathedral, celebrated the offices of the respective cults, to which the soldiers of the Catholic and Reformed confessions were conducted in detachments. Then at ten o'clock came the review.

The weather favoured the 7th Lautenburg Hussars. The sun shone bright and cold. From the square you could see the black leaves, gripped by the gentle westerly breeze, fall slowly from the castle trees into the Melna. I have said before that from my room I could not see the parade-ground where the review was to be held. But rising at daybreak I was in time to watch the 182nd Prussian Infantry Regiment, of which two companies had been told off for general police duties, crossing the Königsplatz en route to its post. The immense throng filled my heart with the joy of those who know that their seats are reserved.

At seven o'clock I was ready, although I had quite decided not to turn out until much later, certainly not before the stands were half full. I picked up some book and tried to read it, not stopping to analyse the reasons for my growing excitement.

At nine o'clock the noise below became so marked and insistent that I thought I could go down without looking absurd. How small and insignificant I felt crossing the great square, the emptiness of which was emphasized by the enormous crowd gathered round it, only kept within bounds by a cordon of infantry with fixed bayonets. The stands were three-quarters full when I arrived, and I should have had considerable difficulty in finding my place if I hadn't seen a hat frantically waved to attract my attention. It was Count de Marçais.

"You're next to me," said the obliging diplomat. "All the better. We can chat while we're waiting."

Glad of an opportunity of impressing me, he told me the names of the distinguished individuals around us: Count Bela, the Austro-Hungarian Minister, almost swallowed up in furs and an astrakhan cap with a silver aigrette; M. Nekludoff, the Russian Minister, in a very unassuming frock-coat; Monsignor Kreppel, with his heavy gold cross on a purple sash, and Rector Etlicher, of Kiel Academy.

Suddenly I pressed his arm. A most attractive young woman had just taken her place in the first row of the stand immediately in front of us. She might have been twenty or twenty-five. Dark, extremely smooth-skinned and languid in her movements, she was wearing a long blue coat and skirt edged with skunk. One of her arms hanging loosely by her side, ended in one of those huge muffs so fashionable at that time. A toque of skunk framed the heavy black coils of her hair.

She noticed Marçais and greeted him with a languid bow.

"Who is she?" I murmured.

"What," he said ecstatically. "You mean to say you don't know the Maid of Honour, the Grand Duchess's inseparable confidante, Fräulein Melusine von Graffenfried? What on earth have you been doing with your time since you came?"

"What a beauty she is!" I said.

"She's a beauty all right! You're not the first to make that discovery. But you'd better realize, my boy," he added, with a curious sly glance, "that there's nothing doing. Besides, you'll forget her existence when the Grand Duchess arrives. Meanwhile she'll do, won't she ..."

Translating words into deeds he touched our beautiful neighbour gently on the shoulder.

"Fräulein von Graffenfried, there are some things in the castle we don't value as we should. Here is one of its residents, who has not yet been presented to you and now solicits that honour. My fellow-countryman, Monsieur Raoul Vignerte, tutor to His Highness Duke Joachim."

The charming young woman turned round and gave me an angelic glance, which, for some reason or other, reduced me to extreme confusion.

"Thank you, dear Count, for giving me an opportunity of knowing Monsieur Vignerte otherwise than by reputation. Monsieur, let me hope we shall meet again without having to wait for so special an occasion. But I'm told you work so hard."

It was not the first time I was to learn how much more tactful distinguished imbeciles are than people of reputed intelligence. Count de Marçais gave me further proof of this when he answered for me:

"No offence meant, dear friend, but perhaps it is easier to gain admittance to the castle library than to your affections!"

Melusine's eyelids quivered imperceptibly.

"No offence taken, I assure you," she rejoined, smiling. "Monsieur Vignerte is a true scholar, and will tell you that the very best libraries are those to which admission is most difficult. Isn't that so, Herr Beck?" She added, turning to the old savant, who had just arrived and was lost in astonishment at the troops concentrated at the two ends of the parade-ground.

I admired the surpassing skill with which she turned a conversation verging on delicate ground.

"You are unquestionably right, Fräulein," my old colleague hastened to reply, with the utter ingenuousness of the man of learning. "Monsieur Vignerte knows only too well that the whole library, manuscripts included, is at his disposal."

"Hush!" said Fräulein von Graffenfried, turning round. "Here's the King."

A group of horsemen had just appeared opposite us, on the other side of the square, in the courtyard of the castle. There was immediately a volley of sharp commands. Cavalry and infantry stiffened to attention. With a noise like sheets of metal tearing, bayonets were fixed to the muzzles of rifles. Three thousand swords flashed out, three thousand tongues of lightning.

Trumpets and fifes began a slow march, a kind of summons to arms, very sharp and strident, but quite in keeping with the keen December morning. When it stopped, there burst out one wild universal cheer, solid, raucous and prolonged, like the roll of a wave which never breaks.

The little group of horsemen advanced at the trot in the huge empty square. The King of Würtemberg, in field-marshal's uniform, was in front on a black horse. On his right was the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus, in general's uniform, very plain. On his left General von Eichhorn displayed all the glories of the Great General Staff. Close by was young Duke Joachim, looking very well in the blue tunic of a lieutenant in the Detmold Dragoons.

Behind them came a display of the finest uniforms in the German Army: a colossal officer of the White Cuirassiers; an officer of the Guard Artillery in black and gold with crimson facings; grey Hussars, a green Uhlan.

"Where's the Grand Duchess?" I murmured to Marçais.

"What! You call yourself an officer of the Reserve! Where do you expect to find the colonel at a review? At the head of his regiment, of course. Look, there's Colonel von Mudra of the 182nd. The review begins with his regiment. He's the man just in front of the Staff. He will drop back into line when his unit has been inspected."

At a gallop the Royal group passed between the companies of the regiment, which smartly opened out for the manœuvre. The white and black standards were lowered at their passage. Then came a sharp order and the ranks closed up. It was the turn of the Detmold Dragoons.

Colonel von Becker, slim and straight, a fine figure in his blue tunic, white gauntlets and black-spiked helmet with its silver eagle, rode up to the King, whom he saluted with a broad sweep of his sabre, presenting to him his superb regiment, a host of giants on motionless giant steeds. This solid mass gave me such an impression of overwhelming force that I involuntarily pressed Marçais' hand.

"H'm!" he murmured. "Our Cuirassiers and Spahis will have their work cut out if it ever comes."

An order, passed down by the commanding officers, captains and lieutenants, and the earth trembled beneath the hoofs of the 11th Detmold Dragoons moving off by the right, behind the 182nd Infantry, to take its place for the march past.

It was Marçais' turn to press my arm.

"Look!" he said.

In front of us, in the first row, Fräulein Melusine von Graffenfried was leaning over the rail with a smile on her lips. Two riders were advancing towards the King. One was little Hagen, rather pale and plainly full of himself. He was riding eight or ten paces behind the Colonel of the Lautenburg Hussars.

To tell the truth, I could not clearly distinguish the features of the Grand Duchess Aurora. I could only see the outline of her slight form.

She was walking a little horse gorgeously caparisoned. Above her riding skirt was the tunic of the Lautenburg Hussars, red with orange facings. Her black kolbach reared its long gold cockade above her head.

She also presented arms to the King of Würtemberg, who, urging his horse forward, bowed over her hand and kissed it. A tremendous cheer went up from the crowd:

"Hoch for the Grand Duchess! Hoch for the King! Hoch for the Kaiser!"

Marçais touched Melusine gently on the arm.

"The Grand Duchess is a very placid Amazon today," he said.

"Do you think so?" replied the girl, shrugging her shoulders but not turning round. "She had two bottles of 'Extra Dry' put in Taras-Bulba's oats this morning. That explains everything."

"Taras-Bulba! Is that her horse?" I asked.

"Yes, a fearful little brute, hairy as a mat, you can see. She brought him from the marshes of the Volga. He's ugly, vicious and obstinate. She's absolutely the only person who can ride him. He tries to bite the groom's face off, but she can do what she likes with him."

"Sh!" said Melusine. "Look!"

The Hussars were advancing at full trot to take their places behind the Dragoons, who were drawn up behind the infantry.

With their backs to the stand and ourselves, the King of Würtemberg and General von Eichhorn faced the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and Duke Joachim, who, at the other end of the parade-ground, presented the troops marching past. I have no bias in favour of the Prussian goose-step, but I assure you that though we may mock at it in France, it is remarkably appropriate to German military atmosphere.

The 182nd marched past in line of columns of companies. You could have heard a pin drop. The six field artillery batteries followed at a gallop, the copper bobs on their black helmets sparkling in the sun. Then, by squads and keeping faultless alignment, the Detmold Dragoons advanced, followed at a distance of two hundred yards or so by the Lautenburg Hussars.

The Grand Duchess was between the two regiments. Little Hagen, stiller than ever, looked in the seventh heaven. A feeling of mute hatred of the man rose within me.

The march past was over. Whilst the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and Duke Joachim came over to join the King of Würtemberg and General von Eichhorn in front of the stand, the two calvary regiments massed for the final charge at the place the princes had just left.

"Look!" said Marçais to me. "You are going to see the Cossack style."

On the right was the blue mass, on the left the red, smaller. Twenty paces in front of them two riders, almost side by side. Colonel von Becker's great bay snorted. Taras-Bulba, quivering with suppressed excitement, did not move.

Leaning forward, Melusine looked on, her gaze at once roving and rapt.

Two sabres flashed and immediately, with a deafening roar, the great wave broke.

And now one horse was ahead—Taras-Bulba. How long would it last? Possibly ten seconds, and then the wave, three thousand horses and three thousand riders, stopped dead before the stands amid a rattle of oaths and the jingling of stirrups. The earth seemed to open.

I shall never forget the sight. On the right Becker, leaning back in his saddle, his horse rearing, saluted the sovereigns with his sword. On the left was Taras-Bulba pawing the air.

Five or six yards away from me the Grand Duchess sat her prancing horse. No pink glow on her pale face spoke of that breathless rush. Her huge black kolbach entirely hid her hair. Her green eyes shone gloriously. A Murat among Amazons, she held her sword raised above her head.

She smiled to us.

At that same moment a cry of admiring wonder broke from three throats. Melusine von Graffenfried, Marçais and I had the glory of leading a frantic burst of cheering.

Then Taras-Bulba fell back on his fore feet. With one hand Aurora von Lautenburg patted his shaggy mane, while she extended the other to King Albert, who kissed it again.

An invitation card, handed to me by Ludwig when I returned to my rooms, intimated that my presence was requested at the dinner to take place at eight o'clock in the Great Gallery, in honour of His Majesty the King of Würtemberg and His Excellency General von Eichhorn. Third table; place 23.

I spent the afternoon in my room, playing with some manuscript or other, turning over pages, but not reading. At seven o'clock I went out into the park. Two hours earlier I had heard the last strains of the hunting horns, distant at first, die out in the ravine of the Melna. It was there that the hunt, led by the King and the Grand Duchess, had concluded.

The palace was a blaze of light, and through its lofty windows I could see the great tables groaning beneath their load of flowers and glass.

Most of the high officials and all the Lautenburg officers had been invited, and three hundred covers were laid at twelve tables.

I went in between a major of the Dragoons and the wife of a Court Councillor, and neither of them said a single word to me during the meal. The band of the 182nd played in the Council Chamber in the intervals between the courses.

I could not see the Grand Duchess, the King, or the Dukes, as the top table was completely hidden from me by a forest of flowers.

In the hubbub of toasts and champagne I slipped out, and went through the Council Chamber to the Great Hall, hoping to get a good view of the entrance of the royalties. A charming voice drew me from the well of my reflections:

"Well, Monsieur Vignerte, why so solitary?"

I was alone in the great room with Fräulein von Graffenfried.

"What about yourself, Fräulein?"

"I? Oh, that's a different matter. The Grand Duchess has asked me to have a look round before the others come in. The waiters are so stupid. She is most anxious that the flowers should be well arranged."

I looked around at the tasteful floral display about us. Purple iris alternated with yellow roses, larger and finer than anything I have ever seen, before or since.

"These flowers are from her own home," Melusine explained; "iris from the Volga and roses from Daghestan. She has a waggon-load sent every month, as she thinks the flowers here very poor. They are beautiful, aren't they?" she added, with her face buried in a large bunch.

"Not more so than she!" I murmured, not knowing what I said.

Melusine gave me a smiling glance. She was dressed in a gown of ivory satin under a tunic of tulle embroidered with iridescent pearls. No jewels, save for a necklace of pink pearls round her smooth throat.

Her whole personality, elegant, languid and perfumed, spoke in that smile.

"Yes, she is," was all she said.

Then with sudden irony:

"So it was her flowers that suggested herself? I shall tell her."

"I beg of you, Fräulein ..."

"No, no! I want you to know her. You must come and see us. We get bored, you know, seeing no one but little Hagen. He isn't always amusing."

"He is in love with her, I suppose," I said, drawing close up to her.

Melusine laughed.

"He's quite tiresome enough for that."

"And she?"

"Monsieur Vignerte," said Melusine, smiling again. "You go from one extreme to the other, the depths of modesty to the heights of indiscretion. Don't you realize that, to say the least, your questions are not very flattering to me?"

She leaned forward, almost touching me. Her black hair brushed my cheek.

"I think you found me much better-looking this morning before seeing her, didn't you?" she whispered.

She took my arm with an imperious gesture.

"Well, you can look at her now."

With a clatter of swords and spurs the procession entered the Great Hall just as a thousand lights were turned on at once.

German Court functions have all the incomparable splendour that the magnificent imperial uniforms give them. I was almost blinded by the amazing display of blue, red and black tunics, bedecked with fur and sparkling with gold.

The hedge of Lautenburg Hussars presented swords.

The Grand Duchess Aurora came first on the arm of the King of Würtemberg.

A draped gown of dark green velvet, amazingly décolleté, left one shoulder absolutely bare. Behind her trailed her long train, with a wonderful design in silver embroidery.

On her right hand she had a single diamond set in platinum, on the left an emerald set in a circle of brilliants.

I had not seen her hair in the morning, but now I beheld that cloud of tawny gold, fashioned in great coils round her head, beneath a gold-lace cap surmounted by a strange barbaric tiara of emeralds.

For one second her eyes met mine. I had an intuition that what she read there did not displease her. I was probably the only human being in that etiquette-ridden concourse who dared gaze thus frankly at that woman.

Do you remember Gustave Moreau's Fée aux Griffons? You will recall the fantastic creature in a vivid blue landscape—that colour is less intense than the green of Aurora of Lautenburg's eyes. The picture will give you a dim idea of the Grand Duchess.

There was the same ethereal atmosphere, the same haunting mystery of outline. Melusine, exquisite, even unnerving as she was, seemed almost commonplace beside that Titania.

What Moreau's picture does not explain is the blending of ingenuousness and resolution which is the whole charm of this princess. She has something of the northern Creole, at once listless and impulsive, and again something of snow in sunshine, sparkling and hard on the surface, soft in substance.

Her waist, perhaps a little too slender, is rather high. You knew how delicately lovely her waist would have been if she had cared to lace it in, for the velvet gown moulded the form in a way that is only possible when there is direct contact with the flesh beneath. The thought that that form could emerge from its sheath like a cold, pure lily sent the blood surging to one's brain.

Among all those faces, on which wine had already begun to leave its purple traces, that pale statue, half unrobed, was miraculously white and pure. Her lips were rouged, her eyes darkened, and, to tell the truth, her nails were unnaturally pink. But you felt she made light of these adventitious aids on which others rely for beauty. You could imagine her smiling at resorting to them. She only uses them to show that she can just as well dispense with them.

The smile which hovered on her pale face was set, artificial. A slave to etiquette, she wore the appropriate official mien. Any one who watched her closely could the better observe an occasional emotion, dead at birth, which for a brief moment disturbed the grave, self-imposed mask. I knew that such an emotion must focus as many impulses as the colours in a prism. I felt that if I ever came to know Her Highness better, I should perhaps succeed in analysing them; but in the meantime that glimpse revealed two elements with unfailing certainty—irony and ennui.

Was this gentle, listless creature, indeed, the Amazon of the morning? I preferred her then. The bare, white shoulder hurt me, and I wanted a heavy ermine cloak to throw over it. There were a dozen around her. Oh! I knew that she was their sovereign, and that their glances, in her presence, were little more than mechanical. But if they had not thought themselves observed what reserve would they have shown?

And who, in Heaven's name, is that little red Hussar, lurking down there behind the flowers and casting covetous glances at that fair shoulder?... Hence, clown! Go back to your tame, fat German women, with their bulging arms and diabolo figures. She is not of your race. She is not for you, lout! I hate you, yet I envy you. I envy your scarlet tunic, your yellow facings, your gold tinsel, your lieutenant's rank in the 7th Hussars, which, when all else fails, is a bond between you and your soul-stirring Colonel. I could then approach her and proffer, as you do now, my compliments on the display of the morning.

With her face almost buried in the bouquet of irises she held to her nostrils, she thanked, in a low voice, the officers who congratulated her.

"Oh, no! You exaggerate. Taras-Bulba deserves all the praise. I'm always amazed at the way you keep up with him on your chargers. Compared with him the animals here are like brewers' horses."

Was I wrong, or could she really if she had wished have spoken German with less of a foreign accent?

Behind a screen of plants on the left the band of the 182nd struck up a waltz. The ball began.

"We are keeping out the dancers, gentlemen. Go and find your partners. They will be getting angry with me. Please take me to my place, Count," she said, taking General von Eichhorn's arm.

These Germans, male and female, waltzed with that grave, concentrated resolution that characterizes them. Spurs clinked merrily, and the beautiful imperial colours mingled under the lights into one fascinating kaleidoscope.

"Monsieur Vignerte, you are not dancing!"

"It is only because I'm such a poor performer, Fräulein. Besides, a black coat cuts a poor figure among all these uniforms."

"That's no reason," replied Melusine. "Why, there's good Frau von Wendel who will go very well with your clothes. You must ask her."

"If I must dance, I should prefer it to be with you."

"I'm afraid I haven't time. My business is to wander round and look after the wallflowers and more bashful dancers. Let me take your arm. You can accompany me."

A pretty woman on my arm gave me the confidence I lacked.

"Fräulein von Graffenfried! Monsieur Vignerte!" The voice of Marçais.

The last word in elegance, he was sitting near the Grand Duchess. Great Heavens! He beckoned to me to go up.

"Can't we ever get hold of you?" he said, laughing. "Here, monsieur."

He presented me to the Grand Duchess.

"It was partly for your sake, Madame, that I brought Monsieur Vignerte here. But you seem in no hurry to use the gifts we offer."

She replied casually:

"I? My wish is nothing better than to know Monsieur Vignerte. I am told he is charming. You must forgive me, monsieur, if I say 'I am told.' I have hitherto had no chance of judging for myself. You work very hard, I understand."

The same words as Melusine had used. Oh, the shame of it! Was I always to wear the pedant's gown? Was I always to be the man who "worked very hard," I, whose nights were passed in dreams of a voluptuousness that none suspected?

I was going to reply. I think I was going to tell that haughty creature the plain truth. But she rose.

"Excuse me! I must dance—at any rate, once! Herr von Hagen," she called.

The little red Hussar was there. He came forward, humble but radiant. I knew a day would come when I should box his ears!

A space had been cleared on the floor. The Grand Duchess Aurora's dance seemed to be a maëlstrom from which the dancers turned aside lest they be drawn in. They waltzed at first the slow German waltz in three time. Then the measure quickened, changing to two beats in the bar. It was no longer even the boston, but a wild, harmonious whirling.

A murmur of admiration went up. The Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus looked on with a smile which was almost a smile of triumph.

It was not Hagen, elegant and accomplished though he was, who set the pace, but the tall green and white form. Round and round she went, listless as ever. Hagen let himself be carried along. An ecstatic flush suffused his fair, boyish face. He was as clay in the hands of his Sovereign. Red, green, red, green, then a blur. The complementary colours appeared. They turned, turned, turned...

In France we should have clapped.

She went back to her place a drooping lily. As she adjusted her right shoulder-strap, she let fall the lovely bouquet of purple iris which she had been carrying. I rushed forward and picked it up.

"Thank you, monsieur," she said casually. Then, this time voluntarily, she dropped them again.

Good Lord! they were already faded.

I went back to my room, opened the window, and, gazing out at the cold stars, drank the dregs of humiliation. I understood. She felt a hopeless antipathy to me. What was it? What had I done? I didn't know.

The outcast's motto came back to me: "To work!"

I could still hear the distant strains of the band. Limousines crossed the Königsplatz with their glaring headlights. Their occupants were happier than I, for they had seen her since I had.

To work!

IV

WELL, Raoul Vignerte! What are you after now? What's this new craze of yours? Why! only a few weeks ago you didn't know in the morning where your dinner was coming from. Your acme of happiness was to be certain of the next day's meals. Here you are certain not only of tomorrow's, but next month's, and even for years to come. You have only to devote yourself to your work—work, the only thing that brings no regret. And with all this you are unhappy, not merely unhappy, but actually miserable. You are more miserable than on the day when you arrived at the Gare d'Orsay, turning out your pockets to see if you could find a proper tip for the porter without changing your one gold piece, which, once broken into, would vanish all too quickly. What is the cause of your suffering? Your cursed imagination. Isn't it because you know that henceforth all the beauties of Paris, all the treasures of France, could not satiate the longings within you? She! a beauty, a Grand Duchess! Poor fool! You called yourself an anti-romanticist and used to make fun of the Romantic Drama. Yet here you are, when it suits your purpose, repeating all unconsciously the adventure of Ruy Blas, lackey to Monseigneur the Marquis de Finlas. Is this what your gods, Le Play and Auguste Comte, have brought you to? You are a funny creature! Why, the queen of your dreams is even further from you than from that little red Hussar with his elegant indolence, rank, and a coat-of-arms to back him....

I got to work and gradually found that the dust of the library chased away my envy, hatred and regret. I accustomed myself to the idea that I should never set foot in the left wing of the palace. I liked to think that she dawdled out life there with her Melusine, and that I was never made for such a place. I deliberately intended to take away from my visit to Lautenburg everything I thought could help or amuse me. In two years' time I should have saved five or six thousand francs and collected material for three or four books. I would return to Paris, and with my methodical industry and the memory of what I had missed, would make her mine. After all, Paris was better than this scornful, barbaric beauty!

Professor Thierry had drawn up an excellent plan of campaign, and the further I explored the library, the more I appreciated his wisdom. The history of the German dynasties contemporary with Louis XIV. sheds a wonderful light on his reign, throwing its natural attraction into greater relief. The single preoccupation of German princelings towards the close of the seventeenth century was to imitate the King of France, the usual method being to secure the services of artists, or pupils of artists, who had worked for him. But while every French seigneur made a point of having a particular artist to work exclusively for him, it is amusing to see how the Germans usually clubbed together to share the expense of commissioning some particular painter, sculptor, or gardener. It reminds one of the way in which poor Parisian families club together to buy a sack of vegetables or a whole lamb at the Halles.

I discovered among the archives most of the estimates of the French painters and sculptors who worked not merely for the Dukes of Lautenburg and Detmold, but also for the Dukes of Lüneburg-Celle and the Electors of Hanover. Ernout executed most of the statuary groups in the gardens. Gourvil, a pupil at La Quintinie, laid them out. Lesigne, a pupil of Lebrun, was commissioned to do the frescoes. A Catalan, Giroud, was in charge of the iron and locksmith's work. Zeyer, a painter in lacquer and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, has left some charming work on the doors of the Herrenhausen Palace at Hanover and of the Palace of Lautenburg.

Their accounts were hotly disputed by the stewards of these Sovereigns, and in many cases the princes themselves did not hesitate to suggest reductions in their own hands. I examined with great interest a long bill of Giroud's, exhibited by that artist before a Hanover tribunal in 1690, to justify his charges for the installation of a number of secret springs at the Herrenhausen. Duke Ernest-Augustus, the future Elector, failed to establish his case for reduction. At that date, at any rate, Hanover had judges who judged.

I had decided in principle to confine my researches to the influence of France on the Courts of Germany in the seventeenth century. I had at my disposal a mass of documents, more than enough for Professor Thierry's purpose and comprising material for a book of my own. It is to that Zeyer, lacquer artist and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, that I owe the extension of my original plan. I found among his accounts a transcript of his evidence before the Commission of Enquiry which tried the unhappy Hanoverian sovereign. He is thus responsible for the events which were to follow.

Vignerte stopped, thought a moment and then put an unexpected question.

"Do you know the dramatic story of Count Philip Christopher of Königsmark?"

For answer I repeated the following lines:

"The author of those lines," said Vignerte, "had read Blaze de Bury's book. It is the only useful work in French on the tragedy. Do you remember it?"

"I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it," I confessed.

"I shall have to give you the story in some detail. It will not explain my own adventure. It makes it even more extraordinary."

You will certainly remember what was the general situation in the State of Hanover in 1680. Its sovereign was Ernest-Augustus, a profligate versed in all the arts of statesmanship, who had been successively Bishop of Osnabrück, and Duke and Elector of Hanover. His brother, George-William, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Ernest-Augustus had a son, George: George-William a daughter, Sophie-Dorothea.

The ambitions of Ernest-Augustus had a double goal. His primary aim was to recover his brother's estates for his family. There was only one method—to marry George to Sophie-Dorothea. The marriage took place in 1682 when the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg was only sixteen.

The other ambition of Ernest-Augustus soared higher. It was the crown of England. Fortune favoured him. One after another the twelve children of Queen Anne were gathered by death. Ernest-Augustus was not to see the fulfilment of his work—he died in 1698—but his son George reaped its fruits. On the death of Queen Anne in 1714 he mounted the throne of Great Britain as George I. He mounted it alone. Eighteen years before he had separated from his wife as the result of an infamous intrigue, and when her husband assumed the crown of England the wretched Sophie-Dorothea was dragging out her weary days in the Castle of Ahlden, more prison than palace.

You must forgive me for this dry summary of facts. It is essential I should be clear.

The story of Sophie-Dorothea's divorce is the story of the assassination of Count Philip-Christopher von Königsmark.

A member of one of the highest and most ancient Swedish families, friend of the Prince-Elector of Saxony, as dark and handsome as Sophie-Dorothea was fair and lovely, Count Philip and the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg had known each other at Celle in their childhood when they were affianced in the ingenuous manner of the times. Their ways had parted, however, and Philip had led the adventurous life of a gallant Swedish free-lance at the Courts of James II. and Louis XIV., at Dresden and Venice.

Was Sophie-Dorothea's marriage a spur to his old love or a blow to his vanity? Whatever the reason, the fact remains that one fine morning Hanover witnessed the arrival of Count Philip von Königsmark.

The Court of the Elector was a den of debauch, a garbage-heap on which Sophie-Dorothea, fair lily, was slowly fading. Betrayed by a husband whom she had ever despised, compelled to tolerate, as gracefully as she could, the virago Countess von Platen, the abject favourite of Ernest-Augustus, she spent her weary life in solitude, preoccupied solely with the education of her two children—a son who was destined for the throne of England, and a daughter who was one day to be Queen of Prussia.

Then Königsmark arrived at Hanover and the drama opened.

Count Philip had come to take his revenge by winning back the heart of Sophie-Dorothea. But before he had even set eyes on her Countess von Platen had her eye on him. He deemed it wise not to flout the all-powerful favourite, but he was obliged to go to great lengths in order to soothe the susceptibilities of that woman—a Messalina and Lady Macbeth in one. He went, in fact, to the furthest limit. Once compromised, she would be in his power—but it was he who found himself in her clutches.

Then began the idyll of Philip von Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea. The gloomy Herrenhausen Palace witnessed their ephemeral loves. Sophie-Dorothea's first notion was that the gallant Count had come to Hanover only to see for himself the misery and desertion of her who had been compelled by her father's wishes to marry another. His practically open liaison with Countess von Platen added fresh torture to her lot. But one morning, going with her lady-in-waiting to the little wood in the Herrenhausen park where she sat out every day, she spied the Count just moving off. A note was left on the seat, with these lines, in the style of Benserade: