head still lower, as if shrinking from her kindly praise.
"The Prince also had something of this gift, and, in so far as he had,
he built up by his own action what, in his supreme need, saved him from
his lower self. I have come to see that the world's virtues, which, in
my self-righteous isolation, I despised, are often, as I blindly said to
the boy, nearer Christ's than my vaunted ones; that the world-spirit is
often the Christ-spirit, and that, when we begin to see that His
footsteps may be traced in paths where we little expect to find them, we
shall no longer dare to talk of the secular life. Your little brother
that died was not without his work, and the canary even was the type of
a nobler life, even as Mark's death was the type of a nobler death. In
strange and unlooked-for ways the mission of sacrifice and love fulfils
itself, and, living in the full light of its influence, we can never
realise the blessing we have derived, the changed aspect of the race we
have inherited, from the Cross of Christ."
IX.
THE next evening there was given, at the Imperial Palace, a ball and
supper, to which none but _la haute noblesse_ were invited. The dancing
began with a brilliant Polonaise, which, headed by the Empress-Queen and
her husband, passed through the rooms in stately procession, in singular
and picturesque contrast and harmony with another faded and more solemn
procession and array of figures in antique armour and dainty ruffs and
doublets, and gold chains and princely mantles, the ancestral portraits
who watched the formal slow dance-movement from the walls.
After the Polonaise came the supper, which was somewhat prolonged. The
supper over, a minuet was danced, and afterward, the company being now
happy and cheerful, and being, moreover, of sufficiently high and
similar rank to dispense with somewhat of the rigid court etiquette,
began to wander through the rooms in an informal manner, and to arrange
_contre-danses_ among themselves.
In those days the _contre-danse_ had not hardened itself into the
quadrille. It was danced, not in fours, but in sets of varying numbers,
and of characters and figures mostly undefined.
In one of the great halls, recently erected by the Emperor-architect,
Charles VI., in a different taste from the older rooms, with marble
floors and ceiling, and lined with mirrors, a very large set, composed
of guests of the highest rank, was being watched by no inconsiderable
number of their companions.
It is difficult to conceive a more magnificent or fascinating sight,
reflected and multiplied as it was by the mirrors on the walls.
The Princess von Isenberg-Wertheim was dancing with a young noble, a
prince of the House of Colleredo, a very handsome, but gay and reckless,
young man. The dance was drawing to a close, the musicians, playing one
of the last figures, _La Pastorelle_, to a very delicate and fine
movement, to which the dancers were devoting their utmost, closest
attention and skill.
As the Princess was standing by her partner, awaiting their turn to go
down the dance, a slight movement caused her to turn her head, and she
found the Count, her friend, standing close to her.
"I am sorry to interrupt, Princess," he said, in a low voice, "but I
fear something serious has happened to the Prince. He cannot be found."
The Princess turned very pale. She caught her breath for a moment, then
she said, in the same tone, "Where is Karl, the _Jager_?"
"I do not know," replied the Count. "I never thought of him."
"Then he is not here," said the Princess, with a relieved air. "If Karl
is with him the Prince is safe."
The Count made a very slight movement of his shoulders, but the
Princess turned serenely to the young man.
"We will finish the figure, Monseigneur," she said graciously; "then,
perhaps, you will excuse me."
"Nothing has happened to the Prince, believe me," said the young man
kindly, as they moved down the room. "He has doubtless gone on some
private expedition with his servant. He probably forgot to leave a
message, and will return to-morrow."
The Princess was so reassured, apparently, by these reflections that she
remained for the final figure of the dance. Then she left the palace,
and, declining the Count's company, drove to her _Hotel_ alone.
She was more strangely moved than she could have explained to herself.
She was, indeed, frightened and perplexed by her own feelings. She felt
herself influenced by an hitherto unrecognised power, and, as it were,
driven onwards by an overpowering impulse, not her own.
Returning, as she did, at an unexpected hour, her women were not in
waiting for her, and, leaving the servants who had accompanied her from
the palace in the hall of the _Hotel_, she wandered up the great
staircase alone. The corridors and rooms were dimly lighted, and a
perfect stillness reigned through the house.
The Princess ascended slowly towards her own apartment, where she
expected to find some, at least, of her dressers, and in so doing, in a
dimly-lighted corridor, she passed the rooms allotted to her children.
The thought of them was not, indeed, in her mind when, as she passed a
door, she fancied that she heard a suppressed, continued crying, as of
children in distress. Still more moved and troubled by this faint
pathetic sound she opened the door and went in. The room was an
antechamber, and both it and the apartment beyond were dark. The
Princess procured a small lamp from the corridor and entered the suite
of rooms.
In the bedchamber beyond the antechamber she found the children, both
sitting up in one bed, clasped in each other's arms, and crying quietly.
The little boy had evidently come for shelter and comfort to his
sister's bed.
"What is the matter, children?" said the Princess, in a tone which
seemed to the little ones strangely soft and kind. "Why are you not
asleep?"
The children had ceased crying, and were looking at her wonderingly as
she stood in her jewels and ball-dress, a brilliant scarf of Indian work
hanging from her arm, the lamp in her hand. They hardly knew whether it
was their mother, whom they saw so seldom, or some serene ethereal
visitant, who resembled her in face and form.
The little Princess, however, with the self-possession of her class,
apparently left this point undecided, and began in her quiet, stately
little way to explain.
"It was dark," she said, "and we were asleep, Fritz and I, and we both
dreamed the same dream. We thought that we were walking in a beautiful
garden, where there were trees, and flowers, and butterflies, and wide
cascades of water, in which rainbows were shining; and while we were
playing there, and were very happy chasing the butterflies, the Herr
Tutor, who was an angel, and who went to heaven, came and took us by the
hand; and, when we saw his face, we knew that he is an angel now; and he
led us through the garden, and talked to us of many things--of God, and
of angels, and of heaven--just as he used to do. But I saw that, though
he talked so pleasantly, he was leading us out of this pleasant garden,
and the flowers grew dim, and the butterflies flew away, and the sky
became very dark. And he led us quite out of the garden into a
burial-ground, where there were tombs, and open graves, and crosses, and
tall dark trees that bore no flower; and the Herr Tutor told us not to
be afraid, and led us on through the graves without speaking any more.
He led us into the midst of the burial-ground, and in the midst of the
burial-ground there was a Calvary, and at the foot of the Calvary there
was a bier. And on the bier we saw you and papa lying quite straight and
still, and we thought that you were dead. And the Herr Tutor vanished
away; and we were so frightened that we cried. And we knelt side by
side, and prayed to the Christ that He would come down. And the Christ
came down from the cross, and came to the bier, and touched it, and you
and papa stood up beautiful and smiling, and came towards us with
outstretched hands, and the Christ vanished away. And we were so glad
that we awoke; and it was dark, and there was no Christ, and no Herr
Tutor, who is an angel, and no papa, and no one to tell us what to do
or where to go."
As the little Princess ceased some servants came in, with whispered
explanations and apologies. The Princess went to her own room. She had
not known what to say to the child; indeed, she hardly knew what had
passed. She allowed herself to be undressed, and lay down.
But, in the deep silence of the hours that preceded the dawn, an
overpowering restlessness took possession of her. A sense of strange
forces and influences, to which she was utterly unaccustomed, seemed
present to her spirit: a crowd of fair and heavenly existences, which
seemed to follow on the steps of that singular boy who had first
attracted her wearied fancy, the Signorina's singing, which had stamped
this impression upon her mind, the strange tenderness she had been
conscious of, the renewed sense of her husband's grace and beauty, his
alarming absence, her children's mystical dream. A new world seemed to
open to her. She felt how poor and bare her life had been, how deserted
by these gracious creatures of the imagination, how unblessed by the
purest, the truest art--the art of pathos and of love.
With the streaks of dawn that stole into the chamber she was conscious
of an irrepressible desire that took possession of her to rise and go
forth. An irresistible power seemed to draw her to follow: she rose,
and, dressing herself in such clothes as were at hand, she went out.
The house itself was quite still, but faintly in the distance might be
heard the sound of a bell. In so religious a Court as that of Vienna
there were private chapels attached to most of the houses of the
nobility, and there was one attached to a neighbouring palace, to which
there was a private communication with the _Hotel_ taken by the Prince.
Following the sound of the bell the Princess traversed several passages,
and reached at last a staircase, down which she turned. As she reached
the first landing two women came out from an open door. They started at
the sight of the Princess. They were the Princess Isoline and Faustina.
"Is it you, Princess?" said the former. "What has called you up so
early?"
"Are you going to the chapel, Isoline?" said the Princess. "May I come
with you?"
+ + + + +
The three ladies entered the chapel by a private door, which led them to
a pew behind the stalls. Upon the original Gothic stone-work and tracery
of the chapel, which was very old, had been introduced rococo work in
mahogany and brass, angels and trumpets and scrolls. The stalls and
organs were covered with filigree work of this description, the windows
filled with paintings in the same florid and incongruous taste. There
were few persons in the chapel, most of them being ladies from the
adjoining palaces, together with a few musicians, for the musical part
of the service was carefully performed by a large and well-paid staff.
Two of the ladies were Protestant, the third, Faustina, a Catholic of a
very undeveloped type; but the music of the Mass spoke a mysterious
language, recognisable to hearts of every creed.
Before the altar, laden with gilded plate and lighted with candles in
silver sconces, the priest said Mass. Above him, in the window, painted
in a lovely Italian landscape full of figures, with towns and castles
and mountain ranges and market-people with horses and cattle, were
represented, in careful and minute painting, the three Marys before the
empty tomb.
"The City of the Sunlight," sang the choir, in an elaborate anthem, with
an allegro movement of the tenors that spoke of sunshine amid the grass
and flowers and flashing sea, of the breezy south wind upon rippling
water and golden hair; and after them the bass recitative, with a
positive assurance that knew no doubt, asserted "The gates--the gates of
it are many--many," which the tenors and altos, with a sudden
inspiration, interpreted, "God's purposes fulfilled--fulfilled in many
ways;" and the whole choir, in a minor key, as with hushed and
awe-struck voices, completed the theme, "But the end is union in the
heart--the heart of the Crucifix; in the City--the City of the Saints."
* * * * *
On her return from the chapel a note from the Prince was put into the
Princess's hand. It merely stated that he was gone to Hernhuth to the
Count Zinzendorf. It had been written at a tavern in the environs of
the city, after his sudden determination had been formed the day before,
and had been entrusted to a servant of the inn to deliver. He had
arrived at the _Hotel_ after the Princess had left, and, on asking for
her Highness, had been told by a careless porter that she was at the
Palace. Wandering about the Palace courts late at night he had been
arrested as a suspicious person, and kept prisoner till the morning.
+ + + + +
In course of time (posts were slow in those days) the Princess received
a long letter from her husband, giving an account of Hernhuth, and of
his conversations with the Count, and concluding with these words:--
"From all this you will, doubtless, conclude that Hernhuth does not
suit me very well, and that the Count and I do not always agree. It
would be more after Isoline's taste. I like the children's dream, as you
tell it, best. We have been dead, and laid upon a bier; but we will,
please God, live hereafter for the children and the Christ."
THE END.
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