MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS
The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on
each side of the ropes toward the margravine's carriage.
I became a perfectly mechanical creature: incapable of observing, just
capable of taking an impression here and there; and in such cases the
impressions that come are stamped on hot wax; they keep the scene
fresh; they partly pervert it as well. Temple's version is, I am sure,
the truer historical picture. He, however, could never repeat it twice
exactly alike, whereas I failed not to render image for image in clear
succession as they had struck me at the time. I could perceive that the
figure of the Prince Albrecht, in its stiff condition, was debarred
from vaulting, or striding, or stooping, so that the ropes were a
barrier between us. I saw the little Princess Ottilia eyeing us with an
absorbed comprehensive air quite unlike the manner of a child. Dots of
heads, curious faces, peering and starting eyes, met my vision. I heard
sharp talk in German, and a rider flung his arm, as if he wished to
crash the universe, and flew off. The margravine seemed to me more an
implacable parrot than a noble lady. I thought to myself: This is my
father, and I am not overjoyed or grateful. In the same way, I felt
that the daylight was bronze, and I did not wonder at it: nay, I
reasoned on the probability of a composition of sun and mould producing
that colour. The truth was, the powers of my heart and will were
frozen; I thought and felt at random. And I crave excuses for dwelling
on such trifling phenomena of the sensations, which have been useful to
me by helping me to realize the scene, even as at the time they
obscured it.
According to Temple's description, when the statue moved its head
toward him, a shudder went through the crowd, and a number of
forefingers were levelled at it, and the head moved toward me, marked
of them all. Its voice was answered by a dull puling scream from women,
and the men gaped. When it descended from the saddle, the act was not
performed with one bound, as I fancied, but difficultly; and it walked
up to me like a figure dragging logs at its heels. Half-a-dozen workmen
ran to arrest it; some townswomen fainted. There was a heavy
altercation in German between the statue and the superintendent of the
arrangements. The sun shone brilliantly on our march to the line of
carriages where the Prince of Eppenwelzen was talking to the margravine
in a fury, and he dashed away on his horse, after bellowing certain
directions to his foresters and the workmen, by whom we were
surrounded; while the margravine talked loudly and amiably, as though
everything had gone well. Her watch was out. She acknowledged my
father's bow, and overlooked him. She seemed to have made her courtiers
smile. The ladies and gentlemen obeyed the wave of her hand by quitting
the ground; the band headed a long line of the commoner sort, and a
body of foresters gathered the remnants and joined them to the rear of
the procession. A liveried groom led away Temple's horse and mine.
Temple declared he could not sit after seeing the statue descend from
its pedestal.
Her Highness's behaviour roughened as soon as the place was clear of
company. She spoke at my father impetuously, with manifest scorn and
reproach, struck her silver-mounted stick on the carriage panels, again
and again stamped her foot, lifting a most variable emphatic
countenance. Princess Ottilia tried to intercede. The margravine
clenched her hands, and, to one not understanding her speech, appeared
literally to blow the little lady off with the breath of her mouth. Her
whole bearing consisted of volleys of abuse, closed by magisterial
interrogations. Temple compared her Highness's language to the running
out of Captain Welsh's chaincable, and my father's replies to the
hauling in: his sentences were short, they sounded like manful
protestations; I barely noticed them. Temple's version of it went: 'And
there was your father apologizing, and the margravine rating him,' etc.
My father, as it happened, was careful not to open his lips wide on
account of the plaster, or thick coating of paint on his face. No one
would have supposed that he was burning with indignation; the fact
being, that to give vent to it, he would have had to exercise his
muscular strength; he was plastered and painted from head to foot. The
fixture of his wig and hat, too, constrained his skin, so that his
looks were no index of his feelings. I longed gloomily for the moment
to come when he would present himself to me in his natural form. He was
not sensible of the touch of my hand, nor I of his. There we had to
stand until the voluble portion of the margravine's anger came to an
end. She shut her eyes and bowed curtly to our salute.
'You have seen the last of me, madam,' my father said to her whirling
carriage-wheels.
He tried to shake, and strained in his ponderous garments. Temple gazed
abashed. I knew not how to act. My father kept lifting his knees on the
spot as if practising a walk.
The tent was in its old place covering the bronze horse. A workman
stepped ahead of us, and we all went at a strange leisurely pace down
the hill through tall pinetrees to where a closed vehicle awaited us.
Here were also a couple of lackeys, who deposited my father on a bed of
moss, and with much effort pulled his huge boots off, leaving him in
red silk stockings. Temple and I snatched his gauntlets; Temple fell
backward, but we had no thought of laughter; people were seen
approaching, and the three of us jumped into the carriage. I had my
father's living hand in mine to squeeze; feeling him scarcely yet the
living man I had sought, and with no great warmth of feeling. His hand
was very moist. Often I said, 'Dear father!—Papa, I'm so glad at last,'
in answer to his short-breathed 'Richie, my little lad, my son
Richmond! You found me out; you found me!' We were conscious that his
thick case of varnished clothing was against us. One would have fancied
from his way of speaking that he suffered from asthma. I was now gifted
with a tenfold power of observation, and let nothing escape me.
Temple, sitting opposite, grinned cheerfully at times to encourage our
spirits; he had not recovered from his wonderment, nor had I introduced
him. My father, however, had caught his name. Temple (who might as well
have talked, I thought) was perpetually stealing secret glances of
abstracted perusal at him with a pair of round infant's eyes, sucking
his reflections the while. My father broke our silence.
'Mr. Temple, I have the honour,' he said, as if about to cough; 'the
honour of making your acquaintance; I fear you must surrender the hope
of making mine at present.'
Temple started and reddened like a little fellow detected in straying
from his spelling-book, which was the window-frame. In a minute or so
the fascination proved too strong for him; his eyes wandered from the
window and he renewed his shy inspection bit by bit as if casting up a
column of figures.
'Yes, Mr. Temple, we are in high Germany,' said my father.
It must have cost Temple cruel pain, for he was a thoroughly
gentlemanly boy, and he could not resist it. Finally he surprised
himself in his stealthy reckoning: arrived at the full-breech or
buttoned waistband, about half-way up his ascent from the red silk
stocking, he would pause and blink rapidly, sometimes jump and cough.
To put him at his ease, my father exclaimed, 'As to this exterior,' he
knocked his knuckles on the heaving hard surface, 'I can only affirm
that it was, on horseback—ahem! particularly as the horse betrayed no
restivity, pronounced perfect! The sole complaint of our interior
concerns the resemblance we bear to a lobster. Human somewhere, I do
believe myself to be. I shall have to be relieved of my shell before I
can at all satisfactorily proclaim the fact. I am a human being,
believe me.'
He begged permission to take breath a minute.
'I know you for my son's friend, Mr. Temple: here is my son, my boy,
Harry Lepel Richmond Roy. Have patience: I shall presently stand
unshelled. I have much to relate; you likewise have your narrative in
store. That you should have lit on me at the critical instant is one of
those miracles which combine to produce overwhelming testimony—ay,
Richie! without a doubt there is a hand directing our destiny.' His
speaking in such a strain, out of pure kindness to Temple, huskily,
with his painful attempt to talk like himself, revived his image as the
father of my heart and dreams, and stirred my torpid affection, though
it was still torpid enough, as may be imagined, when I state that I
remained plunged in contemplation of his stocking of red silk emerging
from the full bronzed breech, considering whether his comparison of
himself to a shell-fish might not be a really just one. We neither of
us regained our true natures until he was free of every vestige of the
garb of Prince Albrecht Wohlgemuth. Attendants were awaiting him at the
garden-gate of a beautiful villa partly girdled by rising fir-woods on
its footing of bright green meadow. They led him away, and us to
bath-rooms.