The Prince was vexed out of his self-possession. “Since you know me,” he said, “it is unnecessary we should ride together. I will precede you, if you please.” And he was about to set spur to the grey mare, when the half-drunken fellow, reaching over, laid his hand upon the rein.
“Hark you,” he said, “prince or no prince, that is not how one man should conduct himself with another. What! You’ll ride with me incog. and set me talking! But if I know you, you’ll preshede me, if you please! Spy!” And the fellow, crimson with drink and injured vanity, almost spat the word into the Prince’s face.
A horrid confusion came over Otto. He perceived that he had acted rudely, grossly presuming on his station. And perhaps a little shiver of physical alarm mingled with his remorse, for the fellow was very powerful, and not more than half in the possession of his senses. “Take your hand from my rein,” he said, with a sufficient assumption of command; and when the man, rather to his wonder, had obeyed: “You should understand, sir,” he added, “that while I might be glad to ride with you as one person of sagacity with another, and so receive your true opinions, it would amuse me very little to hear the empty compliments you would address to me as Prince.”
“You think I would lie, do you?” cried the man with the bottle, purpling deeper.
“I know you would,” returned Otto, entering entirely into his self-possession. “You would not even show me the medal you wear about your neck.” For he had caught a glimpse of a green ribbon at the fellow’s throat.
The change was instantaneous: the red face became mottled with yellow; a thick-fingered, tottering hand made a clutch at the tell-tale ribbon. “Medal!” the man cried, wonderfully sobered. “I have no medal.”
“Pardon me,” said the Prince. “I will even tell you what that medal bears: a Phœnix burning, with the word Libertas.” The medallist remaining speechless, “You are a pretty fellow,” continued Otto, smiling, “to complain of incivility from the man whom you conspire to murder.”
“Murder!” protested the man. “Nay, never that; nothing criminal for me!”
“You are strangely misinformed,” said Otto. “Conspiracy itself is criminal, and ensures the pain of death. Nay, sir, death it is; I will guarantee my accuracy. Not that you need be so deplorably affected, for I am no officer. But those who mingle with politics should look at both sides of the medal.”
“Your Highness ...” began the knight of the bottle.
“Nonsense! you are a Republican,” cried Otto; “what have you to do with highnesses? But let us continue to ride forward. Since you so much desire it, I cannot find it in my heart to deprive you of my company. And for that matter, I have a question to address to you. Why, being so great a body of men—for you are a great body—fifteen thousand, I have heard, but that will be understated; am I right?”
The man gurgled in his throat.
“Why, then, being so considerable a party,” resumed Otto, “do you not come before me boldly with your wants?—what do I say? with your commands? Have I the name of being passionately devoted to my throne? I can scarce suppose it. Come, then; show me your majority, and I will instantly resign. Tell this to your friends; assure them from me of my docility; assure them that, however they conceive of my deficiencies, they cannot suppose me more unfit to be a ruler than I do myself. I am one of the worst princes in Europe; will they improve on that?”
“Far be it from me ...” the man began.
“See, now, if you will not defend my government!” cried Otto. “If I were you, I would leave conspiracies. You are as little fit to be a conspirator as I to be a king.”
“One thing I will say out,” said the man. “It is not so much you that we complain of, it’s your lady.”
“Not a word, sir,” said the Prince; and then after a moment’s pause, and in tones of some anger and contempt: “I once more advise you to have done with politics,” he added; “and when next I see you, let me see you sober. A morning drunkard is the last man to sit in judgment even upon the worst of princes.”
“I have had a drop, but I had not been drinking,” the man replied, triumphing in a sound distinction. “And if I had, what then? Nobody hangs by me. But my mill is standing idle, and I blame it on your wife. Am I alone in that? Go round and ask. Where are the mills? Where are the young men that should be working? Where is the currency? All paralysed. No, sir, it is not equal; for I suffer for your faults—I pay for them, by George, out of a poor man’s pocket. And what have you to do with mine? Drunk or sober, I can see my country going to hell, and I can see whose fault it is. And so now, I’ve said my say, and you may drag me to a stinking dungeon; what care I? I’ve spoke the truth, and so I’ll hold hard, and not intrude upon your Highness’s society.”
And the miller reined up and, clumsily enough, saluted.
“You will observe, I have not asked your name,” said Otto. “I wish you a good ride,” and he rode on hard. But let him ride as he pleased, this interview with the miller was a chokepear, which he could not swallow. He had begun by receiving a reproof in manners, and ended by sustaining a defeat in logic, both from a man whom he despised. All his old thoughts returned with fresher venom. And by three in the afternoon, coming to the cross-roads for Beckstein, Otto decided to turn aside and dine there leisurely. Nothing at least could be worse than to go on as he was going.
In the inn at Beckstein he remarked, immediately upon his entrance, an intelligent young gentleman dining, with a book in front of him. He had his own place laid close to the reader, and with a proper apology, broke ground by asking what he read.
“I am perusing,” answered the young gentleman, “the last work of the Herr Doctor Hohenstockwitz, cousin and librarian of your Prince here in Grünewald—a man of great erudition and some lambencies of wit.”
“I am acquainted,” said Otto, “with the Herr Doctor, though not yet with his work.”
“Two privileges that I must envy you,” replied the young man politely: “an honour in hand, a pleasure in the bush.”
“The Herr Doctor is a man much respected, I believe, for his attainments?” asked the Prince.
“He is, sir, a remarkable instance of the force of intellect,” replied the reader. “Who of our young men know anything of his cousin, all-reigning Prince although he be? Who but has heard of Dr. Gotthold? But intellectual merit, alone of all distinctions, has its base in nature.”
“I have the gratification of addressing a student—perhaps an author?” Otto suggested.
The young man somewhat flushed. “I have some claim to both distinctions, sir, as you suppose,” said he; “there is my card. I am the licentiate Roederer, author of several works on the theory and practice of politics.”
“You immensely interest me,” said the Prince; “the more so as I gather that here in Grünewald we are on the brink of revolution. Pray, since these have been your special studies, would you augur hopefully of such a movement?”
“I perceive,” said the young author, with a certain vinegary twitch, “that you are unacquainted with my opuscula. I am a convinced authoritarian. I share none of those illusory, Utopian fancies with which empirics blind themselves and exasperate the ignorant. The day of these ideas is, believe me, past, or at least passing.”
“When I look about me——” began Otto.
“When you look about you,” interrupted the licentiate, “you behold the ignorant. But in the laboratory of opinion, beside the studious lamp, we begin already to discard these figments. We begin to return to nature’s order, to what I might call, if I were to borrow from the language of therapeutics, the expectant treatment of abuses. You will not misunderstand me,” he continued: “a country in the condition in which we find Grünewald, a prince such as your Prince Otto, we must explicitly condemn; they are behind the age. But I would look for a remedy not to brute convulsions, but to the natural supervenience of a more able sovereign. I should amuse you, perhaps,” added the licentiate, with a smile, “I think I should amuse you if I were to explain my notion of a prince. We who have studied in the closet, no longer, in this age, propose ourselves for active service. The paths, we have perceived, are incompatible. I would not have a student on the throne, though I would have one near by for an adviser. I would set forward as prince a man of a good, medium understanding, lively rather than deep; a man of courtly manner, possessed of the double art to ingratiate and to command; receptive, accommodating, seductive. I have been observing you since your first entrance. Well, sir, were I a subject of Grünewald I should pray Heaven to set upon the seat of government just such another as yourself.”
“The devil you would!” exclaimed the Prince.
The licentiate Roederer laughed most heartily. “I thought I should astonish you,” he said. “These are not the ideas of the masses.”
“They are not, I can assure you,” Otto said.
“Or rather,” distinguished the licentiate, “not to-day. The time will come, however, when these ideas shall prevail.”
“You will permit me, sir, to doubt it,” said Otto.
“Modesty is always admirable,” chuckled the theorist. “But yet I assure you, a man like you, with such a man as, say, Dr. Gotthold at your elbow, would be, for all practical issues, my ideal ruler.”
At this rate the hours sped pleasantly for Otto. But the licentiate unfortunately slept that night at Beckstein, where he was, being dainty in the saddle and given to half stages. And to find a convoy to Mittwalden, and thus mitigate the company of his own thoughts, the Prince had to make favour with a certain party of wood-merchants from various states of the empire, who had been drinking together somewhat noisily at the far end of the apartment.
The night had already fallen when they took the saddle. The merchants were very loud and mirthful; each had a face like a nor’-west moon; and they played pranks with each other’s horses, and mingled songs and choruses, and alternately remembered and forgot the companion of their ride. Otto thus combined society and solitude, hearkening now to their chattering and empty talk, now to the voices of the encircling forest. The star-lit dark, the faint wood airs, the clank of the horse-shoes making broken music, accorded together and attuned his mind, and he was still in a most equal temper when the party reached the top of that long hill that overlooks Mittwalden.
Down in the bottom of a bowl of forest, the lights of the little formal town glittered in a pattern, street crossing street; away by itself on the right, the palace was glowing like a factory.
Although he knew not Otto, one of the wood-merchants was a native of the state. “There,” said he, pointing to the palace with his whip, “there is Jezebel’s inn.”
“What, do you call it that?” cried another, laughing.
“Ay that’s what they call it,” returned the Grünewalder; and he broke into a song, which the rest, as people well acquainted with the words and air, instantly took up in chorus. Her Serene Highness Amalia Seraphina, Princess of Grünewald, was the heroine, Gondremark the hero of this ballad. Shame hissed in Otto’s ears. He reined up short and sat stunned in the saddle; and the singers continued to descend the hill without him.
The song went to a rough, swashing, popular air; and long after the words became inaudible the swing of the music, rising and falling, echoed insult in the Prince’s brain. He fled the sounds. Hard by him on his right a road struck towards the palace, and he followed it through the thick shadows and branching alleys of the park. It was a busy place on a fine summer’s afternoon, when the court and burghers met and saluted; but at that hour of the night in the early spring it was deserted to the roosting birds. Hares rustled among the covert; here and there a statue stood glimmering, with its eternal gesture; here and there the echo of an imitation temple clattered ghostly to the trampling of the mare. Ten minutes brought him to the upper end of his own home garden, where the small stables opened, over a bridge, upon the park. The yard clock was striking the hour of ten; so was the big bell in the palace bell-tower; and, farther off, the belfries of the town. About the stable all else was silent but the stamping of stalled horses and the rattle of halters. Otto dismounted; and as he did so a memory came back to him: a whisper of dishonest grooms and stolen corn, once heard, long forgotten, and now recurring in the nick of opportunity. He crossed the bridge, and, going up to a window, knocked six or seven heavy blows in a particular cadence, and, as he did so, smiled. Presently a wicket was opened in the gate, and a man’s head appeared in the dim starlight.
“Nothing to-night,” said a voice.
“Bring a lantern,” said the Prince.
“Dear heart a’ mercy!” cried the groom. “Who’s that?”
“It is I, the Prince,” replied Otto. “Bring a lantern, take in the mare, and let me through into the garden.”
The man remained silent for a while, his head still projecting through the wicket.
“His Highness!” he said at last. “And why did your Highness knock so strange?”
“It is a superstition in Mittwalden,” answered Otto, “that it cheapens corn.”
With a sound like a sob the groom fled. He was very white when he returned, even by the light of the lantern; and his hand trembled as he undid the fastenings and took the mare.
“Your Highness,” he began at last, “for God’s sake....” And there he paused, oppressed with guilt.
“For God’s sake, what?” asked Otto cheerfully. “For God’s sake let us have cheaper corn, say I. Good-night!” And he strode off into the garden, leaving the groom petrified once more.
The garden descended by a succession of stone terraces to the level of the fish-pond. On the far side the ground rose again, and was crowned by the confused roofs and gables of the palace. The modern pillared front, the ball-room, the great library, the princely apartments, the busy and illuminated quarters of that great house, all faced the town. The garden side was much older; and here it was almost dark; only a few windows quietly lighted at various elevations. The great square tower rose, thinning by stages like a telescope; and on the top of all the flag hung motionless.
The garden, as it now lay in the dusk and glimmer of the starshine, breathed of April violets. Under night’s cavern arch the shrubs obscurely bustled. Through the plotted terraces and down the marble stairs the Prince rapidly descended, fleeing before uncomfortable thoughts. But, alas! from these there is no city of refuge. And now, when he was about midway of the descent, distant strains of music began to fall upon his ear from the ball-room, where the court was dancing. They reached him faint and broken, but they touched the keys of memory; and through and above them, Otto heard the ranting melody of the wood-merchants’ song. Mere blackness seized upon his mind. Here he was coming home; the wife was dancing, the husband had been playing a trick upon a lackey; and meanwhile, all about them, they were a by-word to their subjects. Such a prince, such a husband, such a man, as this Otto had become! And he sped the faster onward.
Some way below he came unexpectedly upon a sentry; yet a little farther, and he was challenged by a second; and as he crossed the bridge over the fish-pond, an officer making the rounds stopped him once more. The parade of watch was more than usual; but curiosity was dead in Otto’s mind, and he only chafed at the interruption. The porter of the back postern admitted him, and started to behold him so disordered. Thence, hasting by private stairs and passages, he came at length unseen to his own chamber, tore off his clothes, and threw himself upon his bed in the dark. The music of the ball-room still continued to a very lively measure; and still, behind that, he heard in spirit the chorus of the merchants clanking down the hill.
At a quarter before six on the following morning Dr. Gotthold was already at his desk in the library; and with a small cup of black coffee at his elbow, and an eye occasionally wandering to the busts and the long array of many-coloured books, was quietly reviewing the labours of the day before. He was a man of about forty, flaxen-haired, with refined features a little worn, and bright eyes somewhat faded. Early to bed and early to rise, his life was devoted to two things: erudition and Rhine wine. An ancient friendship existed latent between him and Otto; they rarely met, but when they did it was to take up at once the thread of their suspended intimacy. Gotthold, the virgin priest of knowledge, had envied his cousin, for half a day, when he was married; he had never envied him his throne.
Reading was not a popular diversion at the court of Grünewald; and that great, pleasant, sunshiny gallery of books and statues was, in practice, Gotthold’s private cabinet. On this particular Wednesday morning, however, he had not been long about his manuscript when a door opened and the Prince stepped into the apartment. The Doctor watched him as he drew near, receiving, from each of the embayed windows in succession, a flush of morning sun; and Otto looked so gay, and walked so airily, he was so well dressed and brushed and frizzled, so point-device, and of such a sovereign elegance, that the heart of his cousin the recluse was rather moved against him.
“Good-morning, Gotthold,” said Otto, dropping in a chair.
“Good-morning, Otto,” returned the librarian. “You are an early bird. Is this an accident, or do you begin reforming?”
“It is about time, I fancy,” answered the Prince.
“I cannot imagine,” said the Doctor. “I am too sceptical to be an ethical adviser; and as for good resolutions, I believed in them when I was young. They are the colours of hope’s rainbow.”
“If you come to think of it,” said Otto, “I am not a popular sovereign.” And with a look he changed his statement to a question.
“Popular? Well, there I would distinguish,” answered Gotthold, leaning back and joining the tips of his fingers. “There are various kinds of popularity: the bookish, which is perfectly impersonal, as unreal as the nightmare; the politician’s, a mixed variety; and yours, which is the most personal of all. Women take to you; footmen adore you; it is as natural to like you as to pat a dog; and were you a saw-miller you would be the most popular citizen in Grünewald. As a prince—well, you are in the wrong trade. It is perhaps philosophical to recognise it as you do.”
“Perhaps philosophical?” repeated Otto.
“Yes, perhaps. I would not be dogmatic,” answered Gotthold.
“Perhaps philosophical, and certainly not virtuous,” Otto resumed.
“Not of a Roman virtue,” chuckled the recluse.
Otto drew his chair nearer to the table, leaned upon it with his elbow, and looked his cousin squarely in the face. “In short,” he asked, “not manly?”
“Well,” Gotthold hesitated, “not manly, if you will.” And then, with a laugh, “I did not know that you gave yourself out to be manly,” he added. “It was one of the points that I inclined to like about you; inclined, I believe, to admire. The names of virtues exercise a charm on most of us; we must lay claim to all of them, however incompatible; we must all be both daring and prudent; we must all vaunt our pride and go to the stake for our humility. Not so you. Without compromise you were yourself: a pretty sight. I have always said it: none so void of all pretence as Otto.”
“Pretence and effort both!” cried Otto. “A dead dog in a canal is more alive. And the question, Gotthold, the question that I have to face is this: Can I not, with effort and self-denial, can I not become a tolerable sovereign?”
“Never,” replied Gotthold. “Dismiss the notion. And besides, dear child, you would not try.”
“Nay, Gotthold, I am not to be put by,” said Otto. “If I am constitutionally unfit to be a sovereign, what am I doing with this money, with this palace, with these guards? And I—a thief—am I to execute the law on others?”
“I admit the difficulty,” said Gotthold.
“Well, can I not try?” continued Otto. “Am I not bound to try? And with the advice and help of such a man as you——”
“Me!” cried the librarian. “Now, God forbid!”
Otto, though he was in no very smiling humour, could not forbear to smile. “Yet I was told last night,” he laughed, “that with a man like me to impersonate, and a man like you to touch the springs, a very possible government could be composed.”
“Now I wonder in what diseased imagination,” Gotthold said, “that preposterous monster saw the light of day?”
“It was one of your own trade—a writer: one Roederer,” said Otto.
“Roederer! an ignorant puppy!” cried the librarian.
“You are ungrateful,” said Otto. “He is one of your professed admirers.”
“Is he?” cried Gotthold, obviously impressed. “Come, that is a good account of the young man. I must read his stuff again. It is the rather to his credit, as our views are opposite. The east and west are not more opposite. Can I have converted him? But no; the incident belongs to Fairyland.”
“You are not then,” asked the Prince, “an authoritarian?”
“I? God bless me, no!” said Gotthold. “I am a red, dear child.”
“That brings me then to my next point, and by a natural transition. If I am so clearly unfitted for my post,” the Prince asked: “if my friends admit it, if my subjects clamour for my downfall, if revolution is preparing at this hour, must I not go forth to meet the inevitable? should I not save these horrors and be done with these absurdities? in a word, should I not abdicate? O, believe me, I feel the ridicule, the vast abuse of language,” he added, wincing, “but even a principulus like me cannot resign; he must make a great gesture, and come buskined forth, and abdicate.”
“Ay,” said Gotthold, “or else stay where he is. What gnat has bitten you to-day? Do you not know that you are touching, with lay hands, the very holiest inwards of philosophy, where madness dwells? Ay, Otto, madness; for in the serene temples of the wise, the inmost shrine, which we carefully keep locked, is full of spiders’ webs. All men, all, are fundamentally useless; nature tolerates, she does not need, she does not use them: sterile flowers! All—down to the fellow swinking in a byre, whom fools point out for the exception—all are useless; all weave ropes of sand; or, like a child that has breathed on a window, write and obliterate, write and obliterate, idle words! Talk of it no more. That way, I tell you, madness lies.” The speaker rose from his chair and then sat down again. He laughed a little laugh, and then, changing his tone, resumed: “Yes, dear child, we are not here to do battle with giants; we are here to be happy like the flowers, if we can be. It is because you could, that I have always secretly admired you. Cling to that trade; believe me, it is the right one. Be happy, be idle, be airy. To the devil with all casuistry! and leave the state to Gondremark, as heretofore. He does it well enough, they say; and his vanity enjoys the situation.”
“Gotthold,” cried Otto, “what is this to me? Useless is not the question; I cannot rest at uselessness; I must be useful or I must be noxious—one or other. I grant you the whole thing, prince and principality alike, is pure absurdity, a stroke of satire; and that a banker or the man who keeps an inn has graver duties. But now, when I have washed my hands of it three years, and left all—labour, responsibility, and honour and enjoyment too, if there be any—to Gondremark and to—Seraphina——” He hesitated at the name, and Gotthold glanced aside. “Well,” the Prince continued, “what has come of it? Taxes, army, cannon—why, it’s like a box of lead soldiers! And the people sick at the folly of it, and fired with the injustice! And war, too—I hear of war—war in this teapot! What a complication of absurdity and disgrace! And when the inevitable end arrives—the revolution—who will be to blame in the sight of God, who will be gibbeted in public opinion? I! Prince Puppet!”
“I thought you had despised public opinion,” said Gotthold.
“I did,” said Otto sombrely, “but now I do not. I am growing old. And then, Gotthold, there is Seraphina. She is loathed in this country that I brought her to and suffered her to spoil. Yes, I gave it her as a plaything, and she has broken it: a fine Prince, an admirable Princess! Even her life—I ask you, Gotthold, is her life safe?”
“It is safe enough to-day,” replied the librarian: “but since you ask me seriously, I would not answer for to-morrow. She is ill-advised.”
“And by whom? By this Gondremark, to whom you counsel me to leave my country,” cried the Prince. “Rare advice! The course that I have been following all these years, to come at last to this. O, ill-advised! if that were all! See now, there is no sense in beating about the bush between two men: you know what scandal says of her?”
Gotthold, with pursed lips, silently nodded.
“Well, come, you are not very cheering as to my conduct as the Prince; have I even done my duty as a husband?” Otto asked.
“Nay, nay,” said Gotthold, earnestly and eagerly, “this is another chapter. I am an old celibate, an old monk. I cannot advise you in your marriage.”
“Nor do I require advice,” said Otto, rising. “All of this must cease.” And he began to walk to and fro with his hands behind his back.
“Well, Otto, may God guide you!” said Gotthold, after a considerable silence. “I cannot.”
“From what does all this spring?” said the Prince, stopping in his walk. “What am I to call it? Diffidence? The fear of ridicule? Inverted vanity? What matter names, if it has brought me to this? I could never bear to be bustling about nothing; I was ashamed of this toy kingdom from the first; I could not tolerate that people should fancy I believed in a thing so patently absurd! I would do nothing that cannot be done smiling. I have a sense of humour, forsooth! I must know better than my Maker. And it was the same thing in my marriage,” he added more hoarsely. “I did not believe this girl could care for me; I must not intrude; I must preserve the foppery of my indifference. What an impotent picture!”
“Ay, we have the same blood,” moralised Gotthold. “You are drawing, with fine strokes, the character of the born sceptic.”
“Sceptic?—coward!” cried Otto. “Coward is the word. A springless, putty-hearted, cowering coward!”
And as the Prince rapped out the words in tones of unusual vigour, a little, stout old gentleman, opening a door behind Gotthold, received them fairly in the face. With his parrot’s beak for a nose, his pursed mouth, his little goggling eyes, he was the picture of formality; and in ordinary circumstances, strutting behind the drum of his corporation, he impressed the beholder with a certain air of frozen dignity and wisdom. But at the smallest contrariety, his trembling hands and disconnected gestures betrayed the weakness at the root. And now, when he was thus surprisingly received in that library of Mittwalden Palace, which was the customary haunt of silence, his hands went up into the air as if he had been shot, and he cried aloud with the scream of an old woman.
“O!” he gasped, recovering, “your Highness! I beg ten thousand pardons. But your Highness at such an hour in the library!—a circumstance so unusual as your Highness’s presence was a thing I could not be expected to foresee.”
“There is no harm done, Herr Cancellarius,” said Otto.
“I came upon the errand of a moment: some papers I left over-night with the Herr Doctor,” said the Chancellor of Grünewald.—“Herr Doctor, if you will kindly give me them, I will intrude no longer.”
Gotthold unlocked a drawer and handed a bundle of manuscript to the old gentleman, who prepared, with fitting salutations, to take his departure.
“Herr Greisengesang, since we have met,” said Otto, “let us talk.”
“I am honoured by his Highness’s commands,” replied the Chancellor.
“All has been quiet since I left?” asked the Prince, resuming his seat.
“The usual business, your Highness,” answered Greisengesang; “punctual trifles: huge, indeed, if neglected, but trifles when discharged. Your Highness is most zealously obeyed.”
“Obeyed, Herr Cancellarius?” returned the Prince. “And when have I obliged you with an order? Replaced, let us rather say. But to touch upon these trifles; instance me a few.”
“The routine of government, from which your Highness has so wisely dissociated his leisure ...” began Greisengesang.
“We will leave my leisure, sir,” said Otto. “Approach the facts.”
“The routine of business was proceeded with,” replied the official, now visibly twittering.
“It is very strange, Herr Cancellarius, that you should so persistently avoid my questions,” said the Prince. “You tempt me to suppose a purpose in your dulness. I have asked you whether all was quiet; do me the pleasure to reply.”
“Perfectly—O, perfectly quiet,” jerked the ancient puppet, with every signal of untruth.
“I make a note of these words,” said the Prince gravely. “You assure me, your sovereign, that since the date of my departure nothing has occurred of which you owe me an account.”
“I take your Highness, I take the Herr Doctor to witness,” cried Greisengesang, “that I have had no such expression.”
“Halt!” said the Prince; and then, after a pause: “Herr Greisengesang, you are an old man, and you served my father before you served me,” he added. “It consists neither with your dignity nor mine that you should babble excuses and stumble possibly upon untruths. Collect your thoughts; and then categorically inform me of all you have been charged to hide.”
Gotthold, stooping very low over his desk, appeared to have resumed his labours; but his shoulders heaved with subterranean merriment. The Prince waited, drawing his handkerchief quietly through his fingers.
“Your Highness, in this informal manner,” said the old gentleman at last, “and being unavoidably deprived of documents, it would be difficult, it would be impossible, to do justice to the somewhat grave occurrences which have transpired.”
“I will not criticise your attitude,” replied the Prince. “I desire that, between you and me, all should be done gently; for I have not forgotten, my old friend, that you were kind to me from the first, and for a period of years a faithful servant. I will thus dismiss the matters on which you waive immediate inquiry. But you have certain papers actually in your hand. Come, Herr Greisengesang, there is at least one point for which you have authority. Enlighten me on that.”
“On that?” cried the old gentleman. “O, that is a trifle; a matter, your Highness, of police; a detail of a purely administrative order. These are simply a selection of the papers seized upon the English traveller.”
“Seized?” echoed Otto. “In what sense? Explain yourself.”
“Sir John Crabtree,” interposed Gotthold, looking up, “was arrested yesterday evening.”
“Is this so, Herr Cancellarius?” demanded Otto sternly.
“It was judged right, your Highness,” protested Greisengesang. “The decree was in due form, invested with your Highness’s authority by procuration. I am but an agent; I had no status to prevent the measure.”
“This man, my guest, has been arrested,” said the Prince. “On what grounds, sir? With what colour of pretence?”
The Chancellor stammered.
“Your Highness will perhaps find the reason in these documents,” said Gotthold, pointing with the tail of his pen.
Otto thanked his cousin with a look. “Give them to me,” he said, addressing the Chancellor.
But that gentleman visibly hesitated to obey. “Baron von Gondremark,” he said, “has made the affair his own. I am in this case a mere messenger; and as such, I am not clothed with any capacity to communicate the documents I carry. Herr Doctor, I am convinced you will not fail to bear me out.”
“I have heard a great deal of nonsense,” said Gotthold, “and most of it from you; but this beats all.”
“Come, sir,” said Otto, rising, “the papers. I command.”
Herr Greisengesang instantly gave way.
“With your Highness’s permission,” he said, “and laying at his feet my most submiss apologies, I will now hasten to attend his further orders in the Chancery.”
“Herr Cancellarius, do you see this chair?” said Otto. “There is where you shall attend my further orders. Oh, now, no more!” he cried, with a gesture, as the old man opened his lips. “You have sufficiently marked your zeal to your employer; and I begin to weary of a moderation you abuse.”
The Chancellor moved to the appointed chair and took his seat in silence.
“And now,” said Otto, opening the roll, “what is all this? It looks like the manuscript of a book.”
“It is,” said Gotthold, “the manuscript of a book of travels.”
“You have read it, Dr. Hohenstockwitz?” asked the Prince.
“Nay, I but saw the title-page,” replied Gotthold. “But the roll was given to me open, and I heard no word of any secrecy.”
Otto dealt the Chancellor an angry glance.
“I see,” he went on. “The papers of an author seized at this date of the world’s history, in a state so petty and so ignorant as Grünewald, here is indeed an ignominious folly. Sir,” to the Chancellor, “I marvel to find you in so scurvy an employment. On your conduct to your Prince I will not dwell; but to descend to be a spy! For what else can it be called? To seize the papers of this gentleman, the private papers of a stranger, the toil of a life, perhaps—to open, and to read them. And what have we to do with books? The Herr Doctor might perhaps be asked for his advice; but we have no index expurgatorius in Grünewald. Had we but that, we should be the most absolute parody and farce upon this tawdry earth.”
Yet, even while Otto spoke, he had continued to unfold the roll; and now, when it lay fully open, his eye rested on the title-page elaborately written in red ink. It ran thus:
MEMOIRS
OF A VISIT TO THE VARIOUS
COURTS OF EUROPE
BY
SIR JOHN CRABTREE, BARONET
Below was a list of chapters, each bearing the name of one of the European Courts; and among these the nineteenth and the last upon the list was dedicated to Grünewald.
“Ah! The Court of Grünewald!” said Otto, “that should be droll reading.” And his curiosity itched for it.
“A methodical dog, this English Baronet,” said Gotthold. “Each chapter written and finished on the spot. I shall look for his work when it appears.”
“It would be odd, now, just to glance at it,” said Otto, wavering.
Gotthold’s brow darkened, and he looked out of window.
But though the Prince understood the reproof, his weakness prevailed. “I will,” he said, with an uneasy laugh, “I will, I think, just glance at it.”
So saying, he resumed his seat and spread the traveller’s manuscript upon the table.
It may well be asked (it was thus the English traveller began his nineteenth chapter) why I should have chosen Grünewald out of so many other states equally petty, formal, dull, and corrupt. Accident, indeed, decided, and not I; but I have seen no reason to regret my visit. The spectacle of this small society macerating in its own abuses was not perhaps instructive, but I have found it exceedingly diverting.
The reigning Prince, Otto Johann Friedrich, a young man of imperfect education, questionable valour, and no scintilla of capacity, has fallen into entire public contempt. It was with difficulty that I obtained an interview, for he is frequently absent from a court where his presence is unheeded, and where his only rôle is to be a cloak for the amours of his wife. At last, however, on the third occasion when I visited the palace, I found this sovereign in the exercise of his inglorious function, with the wife on one hand and the lover on the other. He is not ill-looking; he has hair of a ruddy gold, which naturally curls, and his eyes are dark, a combination which I always regard as the mark of some congenital deficiency, physical or moral; his features are irregular but pleasing; the nose perhaps a little short, and the mouth a little womanish; his address is excellent, and he can express himself with point. But to pierce below these externals is to come on a vacuity of any sterling quality, a deliquescence of the moral nature, a frivolity and inconsequence of purpose that mark the nearly perfect fruit of a decadent age. He has a worthless smattering of many subjects, but a grasp of none. “I soon weary of a pursuit,” he said to me, laughing; it would almost appear as if he took a pride in his incapacity and lack of moral courage. The results of his dilettanteism are to be seen in every field; he is a bad fencer, a second-rate horseman, dancer, shot; he sings—I have heard him—and he sings like a child; he writes intolerable verses in more than doubtful French; he acts like the common amateur; and in short there is no end to the number of things that he does, and does badly. His one manly taste is for the chase. In sum, he is but a plexus of weaknesses; the singing chambermaid of the stage, tricked out in man’s apparel, and mounted on a circus horse. I have seen this poor phantom of a prince riding out alone or with a few huntsmen, disregarded by all, and I have been even grieved for the bearer of so futile and melancholy an existence. The last Merovingians may have looked not otherwise.
The Princess Amalia Seraphina, a daughter of the Grand-Ducal house of Toggenburg-Tannhäuser, would be equally inconsiderable if she were not a cutting instrument in the hands of an ambitious man. She is much younger than the Prince, a girl of two-and-twenty, sick with vanity, superficially clever, and fundamentally a fool. She has a red-brown rolling eye, too large for her face, and with sparks of both levity and ferocity; her forehead is high and narrow, her figure thin and a little stooping. Her manners, her conversation, which she interlards with French, her very tastes and ambitions, are alike assumed, and the assumption is ungracefully apparent: Hoyden playing Cleopatra. I should judge her to be incapable of truth. In private life a girl of this description embroils the peace of families, walks attended by a troop of scowling swains, and passes, once at least, through the divorce court; it is a common and, except to the cynic, an uninteresting type. On the throne, however, and in the hands of a man like Gondremark, she may become the authoress of serious public evils.
Gondremark, the true ruler of this unfortunate country, is a more complex study. His position in Grünewald, to which he is a foreigner, is eminently false; and that he should maintain it as he does, a very miracle of impudence and dexterity. His speech, his face, his policy, are all double: heads and tails. Which of the two extremes may be his actual design he were a bold man who should offer to decide. Yet I will hazard the guess that he follows both experimentally, and awaits, at the hand of destiny, one of those directing hints of which she is so lavish to the wise.
On the one hand, as Maire du Palais to the incompetent Otto, and using the love-sick Princess for a tool and mouthpiece, he pursues a policy of arbitrary power and territorial aggrandisement. He has called out the whole capable male population of the state to military service; he has bought cannon; he has tempted away promising officers from foreign armies; and he now begins, in his international relations, to assume the swaggering port and the vague threatful language of a bully. The idea of extending Grünewald may appear absurd, but the little state is advantageously placed, its neighbours are all defenceless; and if at any moment the jealousies of the greater courts should neutralise each other, an active policy might double the principality both in population and extent. Certainly at least the scheme is entertained in the court of Mittwalden; nor do I myself regard it as entirely desperate. The margravate of Brandenburg has grown from as small beginnings to a formidable power; and though it is late in the day to try adventurous policies, and the age of war seems ended, Fortune, we must not forget, still blindly turns her wheel for men and nations. Concurrently with, and tributary to, these warlike preparations, crushing taxes have been levied, journals have been suppressed, and the country, which three years ago was prosperous and happy, now stagnates in a forced inaction, gold has become a curiosity, and the mills stand idle on the mountain streams.
On the other hand, in his second capacity of popular tribune, Gondremark is the incarnation of the free lodges, and sits at the centre of an organised conspiracy against the state. To any such movement my sympathies were early acquired, and I would not willingly let fall a word that might embarrass or retard the revolution. But to show that I speak of knowledge, and not as the reporter of mere gossip, I may mention that I have myself been present at a meeting where the details of a republican Constitution were minutely debated and arranged; and I may add that Gondremark was throughout referred to by the speakers as their captain in action and the arbiter of their disputes. He has taught his dupes (for so I must regard them) that his power of resistance to the Princess is limited, and at each fresh stretch of authority persuades them, with specious reasons, to postpone the hour of insurrection. Thus (to give some instances of his astute diplomacy) he salved over the decree enforcing military service, under the plea that to be well drilled and exercised in arms was even a necessary preparation for revolt. And the other day, when it began to be rumoured abroad that a war was being forced on a reluctant neighbour, the Grand Duke of Gerolstein, and I made sure it would be the signal for an instant rising, I was struck dumb with wonder to find that even this had been prepared and was to be accepted. I went from one to another in the Liberal camp, and all were in the same story, all had been drilled and schooled and fitted out with vacuous argument. “The lads had better see some real fighting,” they said; “and besides, it will be as well to capture Gerolstein; we can then extend to our neighbours the blessing of liberty on the same day that we snatch it for ourselves; and the republic will be all the stronger to resist, if the kings of Europe should band themselves together to reduce it.” I know not which of the two I should admire the more: the simplicity of the multitude or the audacity of the adventurer. But such are the subtleties, such the quibbling reasons, with which he blinds and leads this people. How long a course so tortuous can be pursued with safety I am incapable of guessing; not long, one would suppose; and yet this singular man has been treading the mazes for five years, and his favour at court and his popularity among the lodges still endure unbroken.
I have the privilege of slightly knowing him. Heavily and somewhat clumsily built, of a vast, disjointed, rambling frame, he can still pull himself together, and figure, not without admiration, in the saloon or the ball-room. His hue and temperament are plentifully bilious; he has a saturnine eye; his cheek is of a dark blue where he has been shaven. Essentially he is to be numbered among the man-haters, a convinced contemner of his fellows. Yet he is himself of a most commonplace ambition and greedy of applause. In talk, he is remarkable for a thirst of information, loving rather to hear than to communicate; for sound and studious views; and, judging by the extreme short-sightedness of common politicians, for a remarkable prevision of events. All this, however, without grace, pleasantry, or charm, heavily set forth, with a dull countenance. In our numerous conversations, although he has always heard me with deference, I have been conscious throughout of a sort of ponderous finessing hard to tolerate. He produces none of the effect of a gentleman; devoid not merely of pleasantry, but of all attention or communicative warmth of bearing. No gentleman, besides, would so parade his amours with the Princess; still less repay the Prince for his long-suffering with the studied insolence of demeanour and the fabrication of insulting nicknames, such as Prince Featherhead, which run from ear to ear and create a laugh throughout the country. Gondremark has thus some of the clumsier characters of the self-made man, combined with an inordinate, almost a besotted, pride of intellect and birth. Heavy, bilious, selfish, inornate, he sits upon this court and country like an incubus.
But it is probable that he preserves softer gifts for necessary purposes. Indeed, it is certain, although he vouchsafed none of it to me, that this cold and stolid politician possesses to a great degree the art of ingratiation, and can be all things to all men. Hence there has probably sprung up the idle legend that in private life he is a gross romping voluptuary. Nothing, at least, can well be more surprising than the terms of his connection with the Princess. Older than her husband, certainly uglier, and, according to the feeble ideas common among women, in every particular less pleasing, he has not only seized the complete command of all her thought and action, but has imposed on her in public a humiliating part. I do not here refer to the complete sacrifice of every rag of her reputation; for to many women these extremities are in themselves attractive. But there is about the court a certain lady of a dishevelled reputation, a Countess von Rosen, wife or widow of a cloudy count, no longer in her second youth, and already bereft of some of her attractions, who unequivocally occupies the station of the Baron’s mistress. I had thought, at first, that she was but a hired accomplice, a mere blind or buffer for the more important sinner. A few hours’ acquaintance with Madame von Rosen for ever dispelled the illusion. She is one rather to make than to prevent a scandal, and she values none of those bribes—money, honours, or employment—with which the situation might be gilded. Indeed, as a person frankly bad, she pleased me, in the court of Grünewald, like a piece of nature.
The power of this man over the Princess is, therefore, without bounds. She has sacrificed to the adoration with which he has inspired her not only her marriage vow and every shred of public decency, but that vice of jealousy which is so much dearer to the female sex than either intrinsic honour or outward consideration. Nay, more: a young, although not a very attractive woman, and a princess both by birth and fact, she submits to the triumphant rivalry of one who might be her mother as to years, and who is so manifestly her inferior in station. This is one of the mysteries of the human heart. But the rage of illicit love, when it is once indulged, appears to grow by feeding; and to a person of the character and temperament of this unfortunate young lady, almost any depth of degradation is within the reach of possibility.
So far Otto read, with waxing indignation; and here his fury overflowed. He tossed the roll upon the table and stood up. “This man,” he said, “is a devil. A filthy imagination, an ear greedy of evil, a ponderous malignity of thought and language: I grow like him by the reading! Chancellor, where is this fellow lodged?”
“He was committed to the Flag Tower,” replied Greisengesang, “in the Gamiani apartment.”
“Lead me to him,” said the Prince; and then, a thought striking him, “Was it for that,” he asked, “that I found so many sentries in the garden?”
“Your Highness, I am unaware,” answered Greisengesang, true to his policy. “The disposition of the guards is a matter distinct from my functions.”
Otto turned upon the old man fiercely, but ere he had time to speak, Gotthold touched him on the arm. He swallowed his wrath with a great effort. “It is well,” he said, taking the roll. “Follow me to the Flag Tower.”
The Chancellor gathered himself together, and the two set forward. It was a long and complicated voyage; for the library was in the wing of the new buildings, and the tower which carried the flag was in the old schloss upon the garden. By a great variety of stairs and corridors, they came out at last upon a patch of gravelled court; the garden peeped through a high grating with a flash of green; tall, old, gabled buildings mounted on every side; the Flag Tower climbed, stage after stage, into the blue; and high over all, among the building daws, the yellow flag wavered in the wind. A sentinel at the foot of the tower stairs presented arms; another paced the first landing; and a third was stationed before the door of the extemporised prison.
“We guard this mud-bag like a jewel,” Otto sneered.
The Gamiani apartment was so called from an Italian doctor who had imposed on the credulity of a former prince. The rooms were large, airy, pleasant, and looked upon the garden; but the walls were of great thickness (for the tower was old), and the windows were heavily barred. The Prince, followed by the Chancellor, still trotting to keep up with him, brushed swiftly through the little library and the long saloon, and burst like a thunderbolt into the bedroom at the farther end. Sir John was finishing his toilet; a man of fifty, hard, uncompromising, able, with the eye and teeth of physical courage. He was unmoved by the irruption, and bowed with a sort of sneering ease.
“To what am I to attribute the honour of this visit?” he asked.
“You have eaten my bread,” replied Otto, “you have taken my hand, you have been received under my roof. When did I fail you in courtesy? What have you asked that was not granted as to an honoured guest? And here, sir,” tapping fiercely on the manuscript, “here is your return.”
“Your Highness has read my papers?” said the Baronet. “I am honoured indeed. But the sketch is most imperfect. I shall now have much to add. I can say that the Prince, whom I had accused of idleness, is zealous in the department of police, taking upon himself those duties that are most distasteful. I shall be able to relate the burlesque incident of my arrest, and the singular interview with which you honour me at present. For the rest, I have already communicated with my Ambassador at Vienna; and unless you propose to murder me, I shall be at liberty, whether you please or not, within the week. For I hardly fancy the future empire of Grünewald is yet ripe to go to war with England. I conceive I am a little more than quits. I owe you no explanation; yours has been the wrong. You, if you have studied my writing with intelligence, owe me a large debt of gratitude. And to conclude, as I have not yet finished my toilet, I imagine the courtesy of a turnkey to a prisoner would induce you to withdraw.”
There was some paper on the table, and Otto, sitting down, wrote a passport in the name of Sir John Crabtree.
“Affix the seal, Herr Cancellarius,” he said, in his most princely manner, as he rose.
Greisengesang produced a red portfolio, and affixed the seal in the unpoetic guise of an adhesive stamp; nor did his perturbed and clumsy movements at all lessen the comedy of the performance. Sir John looked on with a malign enjoyment; and Otto chafed, regretting, when too late, the unnecessary royalty of his command and gesture. But at length the Chancellor had finished his piece of prestidigitation, and, without waiting for an order, had countersigned the passport. Thus regularised, he returned it to Otto with a bow.
“You will now,” said the Prince, “order one of my own carriages to be prepared; see it, with your own eyes, charged with Sir John’s effects, and have it waiting within the hour behind the Pheasant House. Sir John departs this morning for Vienna.”
The Chancellor took his elaborate departure.
“Here, sir, is your passport,” said Otto, turning to the Baronet. “I regret it from my heart that you have met inhospitable usage.”
“Well, there will be no English war,” returned Sir John.
“Nay, sir,” said Otto; “you surely owe me your civility. Matters are now changed, and we stand again upon the footing of two gentlemen. It was not I who ordered your arrest; I returned late last night from hunting; and as you cannot blame me for your imprisonment, you may even thank me for your freedom.”
“And yet you read my papers,” said the traveller shrewdly.
“There, sir, I was wrong,” returned Otto; “and for that I ask your pardon. You can scarce refuse it, for your own dignity, to one who is a plexus of weaknesses. Nor was the fault entirely mine. Had the papers been innocent, it would have been at most an indiscretion. Your own guilt is the sting of my offence.”
Sir John regarded Otto with an approving twinkle; then he bowed, but still in silence.
“Well, sir, as you are now at your entire disposal, I have a favour to beg of your indulgence,” continued the Prince. “I have to request that you will walk with me alone into the garden so soon as your convenience permits.”
“From the moment that I am a free man,” Sir John replied, this time with perfect courtesy, “I am wholly at your Highness’s command; and if you will excuse a rather summary toilet, I will even follow you as I am.”
“I thank you, sir,” said Otto.
So without more delay, the Prince leading, the pair proceeded down through the echoing stairway of the tower, and out through the grating, into the ample air and sunshine of the morning, and among the terraces and flower-beds of the garden. They crossed the fish-pond, where the carp were leaping as thick as bees; they mounted, one after another, the various flights of stairs, snowed upon, as they went, with April blossoms, and marching in time to the great orchestra of birds. Nor did Otto pause till they had reached the highest terrace of the garden. Here was a gate into the park, and hard by, under a tuft of laurel, a marble garden seat. Hence they looked down on the green tops of many elm-trees, where the rooks were busy; and, beyond that, upon the palace roof, and the yellow banner flying in the blue. “I pray you to be seated, sir,” said Otto.
Sir John complied without a word; and for some seconds Otto walked to and fro before him, plunged in angry thought. The birds were all singing for a wager.
“Sir,” said the Prince at length, turning towards the Englishman, “you are to me, except by the conventions of society, a perfect stranger. Of your character and wishes I am ignorant. I have never wittingly disobliged you. There is a difference in station, which I desire to waive. I would, if you still think me entitled to so much consideration—I would be regarded simply as a gentleman. Now, sir, I did wrong to glance at these papers, which I here return to you; but if curiosity be undignified, as I am free to own, falsehood is both cowardly and cruel. I opened your roll; and what did I find—what did I find about my wife? Lies!” he broke out. “They are lies! There are not, so help me God! four words of truth in your intolerable libel! You are a man; you are old, and might be the girl’s father; you are a gentleman; you are a scholar, and have learned refinement; and you rake together all this vulgar scandal, and propose to print it in a public book! Such is your chivalry! But, thank God, sir, she has still a husband. You say, sir, in that paper in your hand, that I am a bad fencer; I have to request from you a lesson in the art. The park is close behind; yonder is the Pheasant House, where you will find your carriage; should I fall, you know, sir—you have written it in your paper—how little my movements are regarded; I am in the custom of disappearing: it will be one more disappearance; and long before it has awakened a remark, you may be safe across the border.”
“You will observe,” said Sir John, “that what you ask is impossible.”
“And if I struck you?” cried the Prince, with a sudden menacing flash.
“It would be a cowardly blow,” returned the Baronet, unmoved, “for it would make no change. I cannot draw upon a reigning sovereign.”
“And it is this man, to whom you dare not offer satisfaction, that you choose to insult!” cried Otto.
“Pardon me,” said the traveller, “you are unjust. It is because you are a reigning sovereign that I cannot fight with you; and it is for the same reason that I have a right to criticise your action and your wife. You are in everything a public creature; you belong to the public, body and bone. You have with you the law, the muskets of the army, and the eyes of spies. We, on our side, have but one weapon—truth.”
“Truth!” echoed the Prince, with a gesture.
There was another silence.
“Your Highness,” said Sir John at last, “you must not expect grapes from a thistle. I am old and a cynic. Nobody cares a rush for me; and on the whole, after the present interview, I scarce know anybody that I like better than yourself. You see, I have changed my mind, and have the uncommon virtue to avow the change. I tear up this stuff before you, here in your own garden; I ask your pardon, I ask the pardon of the Princess; and I give you my word of honour as a gentleman and an old man, that when my book of travels shall appear it shall not contain so much as the name of Grünewald. And yet it was a racy chapter! But had your Highness only read about the other courts! I am a carrion crow; but it is not my fault, after all, that the world is such a nauseous kennel.”
“Sir,” said Otto, “is the eye not jaundiced?”
“Nay,” cried the traveller, “very likely. I am one who goes sniffing; I am no poet. I believe in a better future for the world; or, at all accounts, I do most potently disbelieve in the present. Rotten eggs is the burthen of my song. But indeed, your Highness, when I meet with any merit, I do not think that I am slow to recognise it. This is a day that I shall still recall with gratitude, for I have found a sovereign with some manly virtues; and for once—old courtier and old radical as I am—it is from the heart and quite sincerely that I can request the honour of kissing your Highness’s hand?”
“Nay, sir,” said Otto, “to my heart!”
And the Englishman, taken at unawares, was clasped for a moment in the Prince’s arms.
“And now, sir,” added Otto, “there is the Pheasant House; close behind it you will find my carriage, which I pray you to accept. God speed you to Vienna!”
“In the impetuosity of youth,” replied Sir John, “your Highness has overlooked one circumstance: I am still fasting.”
“Well, sir,” said Otto, smiling, “you are your own master; you may go or stay. But I warn you, your friend may prove less powerful than your enemies. The Prince, indeed, is thoroughly on your side; he has all the will to help; but to whom do I speak?—you know better than I do, he is not alone in Grünewald.”
“There is a deal in position,” returned the traveller, gravely nodding. “Gondremark loves to temporise; his policy is below ground, and he fears all open courses; and now that I have seen you act with so much spirit, I will cheerfully risk myself on your protection. Who knows? You may be yet the better man.”
“Do you indeed believe so?” cried the Prince. “You put life into my heart!”
“I will give up sketching portraits,” said the Baronet. “I am a blind owl; I had misread you strangely. And yet remember this: a sprint is one thing, and to run all day another. For I still mistrust your constitution; the short nose, the hair and eyes of several complexions; no, they are diagnostic; and I must end, I see, as I began.”
“I am still a singing chambermaid?” said Otto.
“Nay, your Highness, I pray you to forget what I had written,” said Sir John; “I am not like Pilate; and the chapter is no more. Bury it, if you love me.”
Greatly comforted by the exploits of the morning, the Prince turned towards the Princess’s ante-room, bent on a more difficult enterprise. The curtains rose before him, the usher called his name, and he entered the room with an exaggeration of his usual mincing and airy dignity. There were about a score of persons waiting, principally ladies; it was one of the few societies in Grünewald where Otto knew himself to be popular; and while a maid of honour made her exit by a side door to announce his arrival to the Princess, he moved round the apartment, collecting homage and bestowing compliments with friendly grace. Had this been the sum of his duties, he had been an admirable monarch. Lady after lady was impartially honoured by his attention.
“Madam,” he said to one, “how does this happen? I find you daily more adorable.”
“And your Highness daily browner,” replied the lady. “We began equal; oh, there I will be bold: we have both beautiful complexions. But while I study mine, your Highness tans himself.”
“A perfect negro, madam; and what so fitly—being beauty’s slave?” said Otto.—“Madame Grafinski, when is our next play? I have just heard that I am a bad actor.”
“O ciel!” cried Madame Grafinski. “Who could venture? What a bear!”
“An excellent man, I can assure you,” returned Otto.
“O, never! O, is it possible!” fluted the lady. “Your Highness plays like an angel.”
“You must be right, madam; who could speak falsely and yet look so charming?” said the Prince. “But this gentleman, it seems, would have preferred me playing like an actor.”
A sort of hum, a falsetto, feminine cooing, greeted the tiny sally; and Otto expanded like a peacock. This warm atmosphere of women and flattery and idle chatter pleased him to the marrow.
“Madame von Eisenthal, your coiffure is delicious,” he remarked.
“Everyone was saying so,” said one.
“If I have pleased Prince Charming?” And Madame von Eisenthal swept him a deep curtsey with a killing glance of adoration.
“It is new?” he asked. “Vienna fashion.”
“Mint new,” replied the lady, “for your Highness’s return. I felt young this morning; it was a premonition. But why, Prince, do you ever leave us?”
“For the pleasure of the return,” said Otto. “I am like a dog; I must bury my bone, and then come back to gloat upon it.”
“O, a bone! Fie, what a comparison! You have brought back the manners of the wood,” returned the lady.
“Madam, it is what the dog has dearest,” said the Prince. “But I observe Madame von Rosen.”
And Otto, leaving the group to which he had been piping, stepped towards the embrasure of a window where a lady stood.
The Countess von Rosen had hitherto been silent, and a thought depressed, but on the approach of Otto she began to brighten. She was tall, slim as a nymph, and of a very airy carriage; and her face, which was already beautiful in repose, lightened and changed, flashed into smiles, and glowed with a lovely colour at the touch of animation. She was a good vocalist; and, even in speech, her voice commanded a great range of changes, the low notes rich with tenor quality, the upper ringing, on the brink of laughter, into music. A gem of many facets, and variable hues of fire; a woman who withheld the better portion of her beauty, and then, in a caressing second, flashed it like a weapon full on the beholder; now merely a tall figure and a sallow handsome face, with the evidences of a reckless temper; anon opening like a flower to life and colour, mirth and tenderness:—Madame von Rosen had always a dagger in reserve for the despatch of ill-assured admirers. She met Otto with the dart of tender gaiety.
“You have come to me at last, Prince Cruel,” she said. “Butterfly! Well, and am I not to kiss your hand?” she added.
“Madam, it is I who must kiss yours.” And Otto bowed and kissed it.
“You deny me every indulgence,” she said, smiling.
“And now what news in court?” inquired the Prince. “I come to you for my gazette.”
“Ditch-water!” she replied. “The world is all asleep, grown grey in slumber; I do not remember any waking movement since quite an eternity; and the last thing in the nature of a sensation was the last time my governess was allowed to box my ears. But yet I do myself and your unfortunate enchanted palace some injustice. Here is the last—O positively!” And she told him the story from behind her fan, with many glances, many cunning strokes of the narrator’s art. The others had drawn away, for it was understood that Madame von Rosen was in favour with the Prince. None the less, however, did the Countess lower her voice at times to within a semitone of whispering; and the pair leaned together over the narrative.