CHAPTER II

1

The Province of Vaza also, lying to the north of the Altara Highlands,

the Alpine range of the Gigants, was harassed in parts by the Zanthos.

The capital, Vaza, was flooded. In the neighbourhood of the

mountain-slopes the province had been spared. There vast terraces of

vineyards lay, alternating with forests of chestnut-trees and

walnut-trees and olives. The glittering white snow-line of the

mountain-tops surged up against a dazzling blue sky, piercing it with

its crests and biting long pieces out of the deep azure in ragged lines;

it seemed to whet ice-teeth, gleaming white fangs, against the metal of

the firmament, which was like burnished steel. There, enthroned on its

rocks, twelve miles from the town, stood old Castel Vaza, the castle of

the dukes of Yemena and counts of Vaza, surrounded by parks and woods,

half castle, half citadel, strong, simple, medieval, rough in outline,

with its four towers and its square patches of battlements, rounding off

the horizon about it on every side and keeping it aloof. Near at hand, a

swarm of little villages; in the distance, the towers and steeples, the

huddled roofs of Vaza; still farther, in the circle of panorama that

broadly girt the towers, the wide Zanthos, winding down to hurl itself

into the sea, and Lycilia, white in the sun with its little squares of

houses, set brilliantly on the blue of the water; then a second sea: the

mountain-tops, surging away in snowy vistas and distant mists. And, also

glittering in the sun, those strange lakes on the Zanthos: the water

which the full river had vomited, the inundations....

* * * * *

The square castle, enclosing a courtyard in its four wings, has two more

wings added at the back, in a newer style of more elegant renascence,

and looking on the park, in which lie the ornamental basins, like oval

dishes of liquid silver, set in emerald lawns. The fallow deer graze

there, dreaming, as it were, and graceful, roaming slowly on slim legs:

sometimes, suddenly, extending themselves, their heads thrown back,

their eyes wild, they run some distance, a number of them, fleeing

before an unseen terror; others, calmer, graze on, laconically,

philosophically.

The dukes of Yemena and counts of Vaza are one of the oldest families of

the empire; and their ancestral tree is rooted ages back, before the

time of the first emperor of Liparia. The present duke, court-marshal

and Constable of Liparia, has three children of his first marriage: the

heir to his title, the young Marquis of Xardi, aide-de-camp to the

emperor, and two daughters, younger, girls still, at a convent.

The duchess is alone at the castle. She is sitting in a large boudoir,

built out with a triangular loggia, and looking over the park, the

basins, the deer. A breeze is blowing outside; and the rapid clouds,

which, like flaky spectres, like rags hidden beneath diaphanous veils,

chase one another through the clear blue sky, trail their shadows, like

quick eclipses, across the park, just tinting it with passing darkness,

which darkens the deer in their turn and then makes them gleam brown

again in the sun. It is silent outside; it is silent in the castle. The

castle stands secluded; within, the servants move softly through the

reception-rooms and corridors, speaking in whispers, in expectation of

the august visitors.

Lunch is over. The duchess lies half-out-stretched on a couch and gazes

at the deer. She is not yet dressed and wears a tea-gown, loose, with

many folds: _vieux rose broché_, salmon-coloured plush and old lace.

When she is alone, she likes plenty of light, from a healthy need of

space and air; the curtains are drawn aside from the tall bow-windows

and the shrillness of the spring sky comes streaming in. But the light

does not suit her beauty; for, though her hair is still raven black, her

complexion has the dullness of faded white roses; her eyes, which can be

beautiful, large, liquid and dark, look full of lassitude, encircled

with pale-yellow shadows; and very clearly visible are the little

wrinkles at the side, the little grooves etched around the delicate

nose, the lines that have lengthened the mouth and draw it down.

The duchess rises slowly; she passes through a door that leads to her

bedroom and dressing-room and stays away for a few moments. Then she

returns; in both hands, pressing it to her, with difficulty, she carries

an obviously heavy casket and sets it on the table in front of the

couch. The casket is of old wrought silver enriched with gilt chasing

and great blue turquoises, of that costly renascence work which is not

made nowadays. She selects a little straight, gold key from her bracelet

and unlocks the casket. The jewels glisten--pearls, brilliants,

sapphires, emeralds--and catch in their facets all the spring light of

the sky, blue, white and yellow. But the duchess presses a spring

unclosing a secret drawer, from which she takes two packets of letters

and some photographs.

The photographs all show the face of a man no longer young, a strange

face, half-dreamy, half-sensual, filled with great mystery and great

charm. The photographs show him in the elaborate uniform of an officer

of the throne-guards, in fancy-dress as a medieval knight, in flannels

and in ordinary mufti. The duchess' eyes pass slowly from one to the

other; she compares the likenesses, a sad smile about her mouth and

melancholy in her eyes. Then she unties the ribbons of the letters,

takes them out of the carefully preserved envelopes, unfolds them and

reads here and there and reads again and refolds them....

She knows by heart the phrases that still tell her of a strange passion,

the most fervent, the truest, the simplest and perhaps for that reason

the strangest that she has ever felt, that has surrounded her with fairy

meshes of fire. Though her eyes look out again at the deer--the sunshine

streams like fluid gold over the park--between her and the peaceful

landscape there rise up, transparent, in tenderly gleaming

phantasmagorias, remembrances of the past, the pictures of that love,

and it seems to her as though sparks are dancing before her eyes, as

though brilliant curves and scintillations of light are swarming on

every hand. She lives through past events in a few moments; then she

closes her eyes, draws her hand over her forehead and thinks how sad it

is that the past is nothing more than a little memory, which flies like

dust and ashes through our souls which we sometimes endeavour, in vain,

to collect in a costly urn. How sad it is that one cannot go on

mourning, though one wish to, because life does not permit it! Nothing

but that dust and ashes in her soul ... and those letters, those

photographs....

She locks them away again and now gazes at the jewels. And she looks

well into her own heart, sees herself exactly as she is, for she knows

that she has been loyal, always, loyal to him and to herself: loyal when

their love broke like a glittering rainbow of sparkling colours on a

wide firmament and she became unwilling to see or to exist and withdrew

from the court into this castle and let it be rumoured that a lingering

illness was causing her to pine away. And she mourned and mourned, first

sobbing and wringing her hands, then calmer in despair, then ... The

deer had gone on grazing there, as though they always remained

unchanged. But she....

* * * * *

She had been loyal, always: in her despair and also in what followed, in

the abatement of that despair. Then she was saddest of all, because

despair was able to abate. Then sad, because she still lived and felt

vitality within her. Then ... because she began to grow bored. Because

of all this a great despair had filled her strange soul, luxuriantly, as

with the morbid blossoms of strange orchids. She hated, despised, cursed

herself. But nothing changed in her. She was bored.

She led a solitary life at the castle. Her husband and her stepson were

at Lipara; her stepdaughters, to whom she was much attached, were

finishing their education at a convent, of which an imperial princess, a

sister of the emperor, was abbess.

She was alone, she never saw anybody. And she was bored. Life awoke in

her anew, for it had only slumbered, she had deemed it dead, had wished

to bury it in a sepulchre around which her memories should stand as

statues. Within herself, she felt herself to be what she had always

been, in spite of all her love: a woman of the world, hankering after

the glamour of imperial surroundings, that court splendour which fatally

reattracts and is indispensable to those who have inhaled it from their

birth as their vital air. And, at moments when she was not thinking of

her despair, she thought of the Imperial, saw herself there, brilliant

in her ripe beauty, made much of and adored as she had always been.

Then she caused her stepson, the Marquis of Xardi, to spread the rumour

that she was convalescent. A month later, in the middle of the winter

season, after a great court festival but before one of the intimate

assemblies in the empress' own apartments, she requested an audience of

Elizabeth.

Thus she beheld herself in true, clear truth and was deeply mournful in

her poor soul filled with desire of love and desire of the world and

humanity, because life insisted on continuing so cruelly, as in a mad

triumphal progress, crushing her memories under its chariot-wheels,

clattering through her melancholy with its trumpet-blasts, making her

see the paltriness of mankind, the pettiness of its feeling, the

littleness of its soul, which is nevertheless the only thing it has....

* * * * *

The duchess locks the twice-precious casket away again. She forgets what

is going on about her, what is awaiting her; she gazes, dreams and lives

again in the past, with the enjoyment which a woman finds in the past

when she loses her youth.

There is a knock at the door, a footman appears and bows:

"Excellency, the cook begs urgently to be allowed to speak to you in

person...."

"The cook?..."

She raises her beautiful face, dreaming, half-laughing, with its profile

like Cleopatra's, so Egyptian in its delicacy and symmetry, settles

herself a little higher on the couch and leans on her hand:

"Let him come in...."

Everything returns to her, reality, the actual day; and she smiles

because of it and shrugs her shoulders: such is life.

The footman goes out; the cook enters in his white apron and white cap:

he is nervous and, now that his mistress is already frowning her

eyebrows because of his disrespectful costume, he begins to stammer:

"Forgive me, excellency...."

And he points with an unhappy face to his apron, his white sleeves....

And he complains that the head gamekeeper has not provided sufficient

ortolans. He cannot make his pasty; he dares not take it upon himself,

excellency.

She looks at him with her sphinx-like eyes; she has a great inclination

to burst out laughing at his comical face, his despairing gestures, his

outstretched arms, to laugh and also to cry wildly and loudly.

"What are we to do, excellency, what are we to do?"

The town is too far away; there is no time to send there before dinner

and, for the matter of that, they never have anything in the town.

Besides, it is really the steward's fault, excellency; the steward

should have told her excellency....

"There are larks," she says.

"Those were to go to Lipara to-morrow, excellency, to his excellency the

duke!"

The duchess shrugs her shoulders, laughing a little:

"It can't be helped, my friend. His imperial highness the Duke of Xara

comes before his excellency, does he not? Make a _chaufroid_ of larks."

Yes, that is what he had thought of doing, but he had not ventured to

suggest it. Yes, that would do very well, admirably, excellency.

She gives another little laugh and then nods, to say that he can go. The

cook, evidently relieved, bows and disappears. She rises, looks at

herself in a mirror as she stands erect in her lazily creased folds of

pink and salmon-colour and old lace, stretches her arms with a gesture

of utter fatigue and rings for her maid, after which she enters her

dressing-room. Does she want to laugh again ... or to cry again? She

does not know; but she does know that she has to get dressed....

Whatever confront a person, love or ortolan-pasty, that person must

dress, must dress and eat and sleep ... and after that the same again:

dress ... and eat ... and sleep....

2

Three carriages, with postillions, bring Othomar, Herman and the others

along the broad, winding, switchback road to Castel Vaza. It is five

o'clock in the afternoon; the weather is mild and sunny, but not warm: a

fresh breeze is blowing. The landscape is wide and noble; with each turn

of the road come changes in the panorama of snow-clad mountains. The

country is luxuriantly beautiful. The little villages through which they

drive look prosperous: they are the duke's property. Between Vaza and

the castle the land has been spared by the water: the overflowing of the

Zanthos has inundated rather the eastern district. It is difficult here

to think constantly of that dreadful flood and of the condition of

Lipara yonder, which the emperor has proclaimed in state of siege. It is

so beautiful here, so full of spring life; and the sunset after a fine,

summery day is here devoid of sadness. The chestnut-trees waft their

fresh green fans; and the sky is still like mother-of-pearl, though a

dust of twilight is beginning to hover over it. A lively conversation is

in progress between the princes, Ducardi and Von Fest, who sit in the

first carriage: they talk with animation, laugh and are amused because

the villagers sometimes, of course, salute them, as visitors to the

castle, with a touch of the cap or a kindly nod, but do not know who

they are. Prince Herman nods to a handsome young peasant-girl, who stays

staring after them open-mouthed, and recalls the delightful big-game

hunt last year when he was the duke's guest, together with the emperor

and Othomar. They did not see the duchess that time: she was unwell....

General Ducardi tells anecdotes about the war of fifteen years ago.

And they all find some difficulty in fixing their faces in official

folds when they drive through the old, escutcheoned gate over the

lowered drawbridge into the long carriage-drive and are received by the

chamberlain in the inner courtyard of the castle. This is prescribed by

etiquette. The duchess must not show herself before the chamberlain,

surrounded by the duke's whole household, has bidden the Duke of Xara

welcome in the name of his absent master and offered the crown-prince a

telegram from Lipara, which the steward hands him on a silver tray. This

telegram is from the Duke of Yemena; it says that his service and that

of his son, the Marquis of Xardi, about the person of his majesty the

emperor, the Duke of Xara's most gracious father, prevent them from

being there to receive their beloved crown-prince in their castle, but

that they beg his imperial highness to look upon the house as his. The

prince reads the telegram and hands it to his aide-de-camp, the Count of

Thesbia. Then, conducted by the chamberlain, he ascends the steps and

enters the hall.

Notwithstanding that it is still daylight outside, the hall is

brilliantly lighted and resembles a forest full of palm-trees and

broad-leaved ornamental plants. The duchess steps towards the

crown-prince and breaks the line of her graciousness in a deep curtsey.

He has seen her bow like this before. But perhaps she is still handsomer

in this plain black velvet gown and Venetian lace, cut very low, her

splendid bosom exposed, white with the grain of Carrara marble, her

statuesque arms bare, a heavy train behind her like a wave of ink; a

small ducal coronet of brilliants and emeralds in her hair, which is

also black, with a gold-blue raven's glow.

She bids the princes welcome. Othomar offers her his arm. Prince Herman

and the equerries follow them up the colossal staircase, through the

hedge of flunkeys, who stand motionless with fixed eyes that do not seem

to see. Then through a row of lighted rooms and galleries to a great

reception-room, glittering with light from the costly rock-crystal

chandelier, in which the candle-light coruscates and casts expansive

gleams and shimmers over the marble mosaic of the floor and along the

decorative mirrors, in their frames of heavy Louis-XV. arabesques, and

the paintings by renascence masters on the walls.

A momentary standing reception is held, a miniature court: in their

dazzling uniforms--for it was a delightful, though long drive from Vaza

and the men had had time to change into their full-dress uniforms in the

town--the equerries and aides come, one after the other, to kiss the

duchess' hand; except the Gothlandic officers, she knows them all,

nearly all intimately; she is able to speak an almost familiar word to

each of them, while the gold of her voice melts between her laughing

lips and her great, Egyptian eyes look out, strangely dreaming. So she

stands for a moment as a most adorable hostess between the two princes,

she, a woman, alone among these officers who surround them, in the midst

of a cross-fire of compliments and badinage that sparkles around them

all. Then the steward appears, while the doors open out and the table is

revealed brightly glittering, and bows before his mistress as a sign

that she is served. The duchess takes the crown-prince's arm; the

gentlemen follow.

The dinner is very lively. They are an intimate circle, people

accustomed to meet one another every day. The duchess sees that an easy

tone is preserved, one of light familiarity, which restrains itself

before the crown-prince, yet gives a suggestion of the somewhat cavalier

roughness and _sans-gêne_ that is the fashionable tone at court. The

Gothlandic officers are evidently not in the secret; Von Fest, a giant

of a fellow, looks right and left and smiles. For the rest, the duchess

possesses this smart, informal manner in a very strong degree, but

moderates herself now, although she does sometimes lean both her shapely

elbows on the table. The crown-prince once more has that indescribable

stiffness which makes things freeze around him; the ease which he

displayed at Altara has again made way for something almost constrained

and at the same time haughty; his smiles for the duchess are forced; and

the handsome hostess in her heart thinks her illustrious guest an

insufferable prig.

Possibly Othomar behaves as he does because of the conversations, which

all focus themselves about the duchess and concern the gossip of the

Imperial; the inundations are hardly mentioned, hardly either the state

of siege in the capital; only a single word now and again recalls them.

But for the greater part all this seems to be forgotten here, in these

delightful surroundings, at this excellent dinner, under the froth of

the soft gold lycilian from the duke's private vineyard. This lycilian

is celebrated and they also celebrate it now: even the crown-prince

touches glasses with the duchess with a courteous word or two, which he

utters very ordinarily, but which they seem to think a most witty

compliment, for they all laugh with flattering approbation, with glances

of intelligence; and the duchess herself no longer thinks him so

insufferable, but beams upon him with her full and radiant laugh. But

what has he said? He is astounded at himself and at their laughter. He

intended nothing but a commonplace; and....

But he remembers: it is always like that; and he now understands. And he

thinks them feeble and turns to Ducardi and Von Fest; he forces the

conversation and suddenly begins to talk volubly about the condition of

the town of Vaza, which also has suffered greatly. Then about Altara. He

gives the duchess a long description of the bursting of the Therezia

Dyke. The duchess thinks him a queer boy; for an instant she fancies

that he is posing; then she decides that for some reason or other he is

a little shy; then she thinks that he has fine, soft eyes, looking up

like that under his eyelids, and that he has a pleasant way of telling

things. She turns right round to him, forgets the officers around her,

asks questions and, with her elbows on the table and a goblet of

lycilian in her hand, she listens attentively, hangs on the young

imperial lips and feels an emotion. This emotion comes because he is so

young and august and has those eyes and that voice. She is attracted by

his hands, with their broad, delicate shape, as of an old strength of

race that is wearing out; she notices that he looks now and then at his

ring. And, becoming serious, she talks of the dreadful times, of all

those thousands of poor people without a roof over their heads, without

anything.... This is, however, only the second moment that she has

thought of those thousands; the first was that short half-hour when the

duke's chaplain was asking her for money and how she wished it

bestowed.... She remembers that, at the time of this conversation with

the chaplain, a cutter from Worth's was waiting for her to try on the

very dress which she is now wearing and she thinks that life's accidents

are really most interesting. She knows, in her inner consciousness, that

this philosophy is as the froth of champagne and she herself laughs at

it. Then she again listens attentively to Othomar, who is still telling

of the nocturnal watch in St. Therezia's Church. The officers have grown

quiet and are listening too. His imperial highness has made himself the

centre of conversation and dethroned the duchess. She has noticed this

too, thinks it strange of him but nice, above all does not know what she

wants of him and is charmed.

3

After dinner a cosy gathering in two small drawing-rooms. One of them

contains a billiard-table; and the duchess herself, gracefully pointing

her cue, which she holds in her jewelled fingers, plays a game with

Prince Herman, Leoni and young Thesbia. Sometimes, in aiming, she hangs

over the green table with an incredible suppleness in her heavy lines;

and the beautiful Carrara breast heaves the Venetian lace and the black

velvet up and down at each rapid movement. In the other room, under a

lamp of draped lace, Othomar and General Ducardi and the Gothlandic

equerries are attentively engaged in studying on an accurately detailed

ordnance-map the route which they are to follow to-morrow on horseback to

the inundated villages. The steward and a footman go round with coffee

and liqueurs.

When the game of billiards is over, the duchess comes into the next room

with her gentlemen, laughing merrily. The prince and his officers look

up, politely smiling, from their map, but she, bewitchingly:

"Oh, don't let me disturb you, highness!..."

She takes Dutri's arm for a stroll on the terrace outside. The doors are

open, the weather is delicious: it is a little cool. The steward hangs a

fur cloak over her bare shoulders. On the long terrace outside she walks

with Dutri to and fro, to and fro, constantly passing the open doors and

as constantly throwing a glance to the group under the lamp: bent heads

and fingers that point with a pencil. Her step is light on the arm of

the elegant equerry; her train rustles gaily behind her. She talks

vivaciously, asks Dutri:

"How are you enjoying your tour?"

"Bored to death! Nothing and nobody amusing, except the primate's

secretary!... Those Gothlanders are bores and so terribly provincial!

And it's tiring too, all this toiling about! You see, I look upon it as

war and so I manage to carry on; if I were to look upon it as times of

peace, I should never pull through. Fortunately our reception has been

tolerably decent everywhere. Oh, there is no doubt the crown-prince is

making himself popular...."

"A nice boy," she says, interrupting him. "I had hardly seen him for a

long time since, when he was studying at Altara; after that I only

remember seeing him once or twice at the Imperial, shot up from a child

like an asparagus-stalk and yet a mere lad. I remember it still: he

flushed when I curtseyed to him. Then again lately, at Myxila's...."

Dutri is very familiar with the duchess: he calls her by her Christian

name, he always flirts with her a little, to amuse himself, from

swagger, without receiving any further favours; they know each other too

well, they have been in each other's confidence too long and she looks

upon him more as a _cavaliere servente_ for trifling services and little

court intrigues than as one for whom she could ever feel any sort of

"emotion."

"_Ma chère Alexa_, take care!" says he, wagging his finger at her.

"Why?" she retorts, defiantly.

"As if I did not see...."

She laughs aloud:

"See what you please!" she exclaims, indifferently, with her voice of

rough _sans-gêne_, which is in fashion. "No, my dear Dutri, you needn't

warn me, I assure you! Why, my dear boy, I have two girls to bring out

next year! In two years' time I may be a grandmamma. I have given up

that sort of thing. I can't understand that there are women so mad as

always to want that. And then it makes you grow old so quickly...."

Dutri roars; he can't restrain himself, he chokes with laughing....

"What are you laughing at?" she asks.

He looks at her, shakes his head, as though to say he knows all about

it:

"Really, there's no need for you to play hide-and-seek like that with

me, Alexa. I know as well as you do ... that you yourself are one of

those mad women!..."

He bursts out laughing again; and this time she joins in:

"I?"

"Get out! You want that as much as you want food and sleep at regular

intervals. You would have been dead long ago, if you had not had your

periodical 'emotions'. And, as to growing old, you know you hate the

very thought of it!"

"Oh no! I do what I can to remain young, because that's a duty which one

owes to one's self. But I don't fight against it. And you shall see,

when the time comes, that I shall carry my old age very gracefully...."

"As you carry everything."

"Thanks. Look here: when I begin to go grey, I shall put something on my

hair that will make me grey entirely and I will powder it, do you see?

That's all!"

"A good idea...."

"Dutri...."

He looked at her, understood that she wanted to ask him something. They

walked on for an instant silently, in the dark; constantly walking to

and fro, they each time passed twice through the light that fell in two

wide patches through the doors on to the terrace. The park was full of

black shadow and the great vases on the terrace shone vaguely white;

above, the sky hung full of stars.

"What did you want to ask me?" asked the equerry.

She waited till they had passed through the light and were again walking

in the darkness:

"Do you ever hear of him now?"

"Thesbia had a letter from him the other day, from Paris. Not much news.

He's boring himself, I believe, and running through his money. It's the

stupidest thing you can do, to run through your money in Paris. I think

Paris a played-out hole. Of course it couldn't be anything else. A

republic is nothing at all. So primitive and uncivilized. There were

republics before the monarchies: Paradise, with Adam and Eve, was a

republic of beasts and animals; Adam was president...."

"Don't be an idiot. What did he write?"

"Nothing particular. But what a mad notion of his, to send in his papers

as captain of the guards! How did he come to do it? Tell me, what

happened between you two?"

They were walking through the light again and she did not answer; then,

in the darkness:

"Nothing," she said; and her voice no longer had that affected smartness

of brutality and _sans-gêne_, but melted in a plaintive note of

melancholy.

"Nothing?" said Dutri. "Then why...?"

"I don't know. We had talked a great deal together and so gradually

began to feel that we could no longer make each other happy. I really

can't remember the reason, really I can't."

"A question of psychology therefore. This comes of all that sentiment.

You're both very foolish. Meddling with psychology when you're in love

is very imprudent, because then you start psychologizing on yourselves

and cut up your love into little bits, like a tart of which you are

afraid you won't be able to get enough to eat. Practise psychology on

somebody else, that's better: as I do on you, Alexa."

"Come, don't talk nonsense, Dutri. Don't you know anything more about

him?"

"Nothing more, except that he has made himself impossible for our set.

And that perhaps through your fault, Alexa, and through your

psychology."

She walked silently, leaning on his arm; her mouth trembled, her

Egyptian eyes grew moist:

"Oh!" she said; and she suddenly made the equerry stand still, grasped

his arm tightly and looked him straight in the face with her moist eyes.

"I loved him, I loved him, as I have never loved any one! I ... I still

love him! If he were to write me one word, I should forget who I was, my

husband, my position, I should go to him, go to him.... Oh, Dutri, do

you know what it means, in our artificial existence, in which everything

is so false around you, to ... to ... to have really loved any one? And

to know that you have that feeling as a sheer truth in your heart? Oh, I

tell you, I adore him, I still adore him ... and one word from him, one

word...."

"Lucky that he's more sensible than you, Alexa, and will never say that

word. Besides, he has no money: what would you do if you were with him?

Go on the stage together? What a volcano you are, Alexa, what a

volcano!"

He shook his foppish, curly head disapprovingly, adjusted the heavy

tassels of his uniform. She took his hand, still serious, not yet

relapsing into her tone of persiflage:

"Dutri, when you hear from him, will you promise to tell me about him? I

sometimes hunger for news of him...."

She looked at him with such intense, violent longing, with such hunger,

that he was startled. He saw in her the woman prepared to do all things

for her passion. Then he smiled, flippant as always:

"What silly creatures you all are! Very well, I promise. But let us go

in now, for the geographical studies seem to be finished and I am dying

for a cup of tea...."

They went indoors. Busying herself at the tea-table, letting her fingers

move gracefully over the antique Chinese cups, she straightway asked the

crown-prince which road his highness proposed to take, feeling great

concern about the inundated villages, the poor peasants, agreeing

entirely in all things with the Duke of Xara, bathing in the sympathy

which she gathered from his sweet, black, melancholy eyes--eyes from

which she felt tempted to kiss all the melancholy away--bathing in his

youthful splendour of empire....

Dutri helped her to sugar the tea. He watched her with interest: he knew

her fairly well, she retained very little enigma for him; yet she always

amused him and he always found in her a fresh subject for study.

4

It was one of the historic apartments of Castel Vaza, an ancient, sombre

room in which the emperors of Liparia who had been guests of the dukes

of Yemena had always slept on an old, gilt bed of state, raised five

steps from the floor, a bed around which the heavy curtains of dark-blue

brocade and velvet hung from an imperial crown borne by cherubs. On the

walls were portraits of all the emperors and empresses who had rested

there: the dukes of Yemena had always been much loved by their

sovereigns and the pride of the ducal family was that every Liparian

emperor had been at least one night its guest. Historical memories were

attached to every piece of furniture, to every ornament, to the gilt

basin and the gilt ewer, to everything; and the legends of his house

rose one by one in Othomar's mind as he stretched himself out to rest.

He was very weary and yet not sleepy. He felt a leaden stiffness in his

joints, as though he had caught cold, and a continuous shiver passed

through his whole body, a mysterious quivering of the nerves, as if he

were a tense string responding to a touch. The week spent at Altara, the

subsequent five days at Vaza, the drives in the environs had tired him

out. During the day he could not find a moment's time to yield to this

fatigue, but at night, as he lay stretched for rest, it shattered him,

without being followed by a healthy sleep.

He was used to his little camp-bed, on which he slept in his austere

bedroom at the Imperial, the bed on which he had slept since childhood.

The state-beds, at the Episcopal, at Vaza and now here, made him feel

strange, laid-out and uncomfortable. His eyes again remained open,

following the folds of the tall curtains, seeking to penetrate the

shadows which the faint light of a silver lamp drove creeping into the

corners. He began to hear a loud buzzing in his ears.

And he thought it curious to be lying here on this bed on which his

ancestors had already lain before him. They all peered at him from the

eight panels in the walls. What was he? An atom of life, a little stuff

of sovereignty, born of them all; one of the last links of their long

chain, which wound through the ages and led back to that mysterious,

mystical origin, half-sacred, half-legendary, to St. Ladislas

himself.... Would that same thing come after him also, a second chain

which would wind into the future? Or...? And to what purpose was the

ever-returning, endless, eternal renascence of life? What would be the

end, the great end?...

Suddenly, like a vision, the night on the Therezia Square recurred to

his mind, the thundering salute from the fort, thrice repeated, and the

mighty, roaring onslaught of an approaching blackness, resembling a sea.

Was it only a humming in his ears, or ... or was it really roaring on

again? Did the black future come roaring on, in reply to his question as

to the end, the great end, with the same sound of threatening waters

which nothing could withstand? It burst through dykes; it dragged with

it all that was thrown up as a protection, inexorable, and--with its

grim, black, fateful frown and the sombre pleats of its inundations,

which resembled a shroud trailing over everything that was doomed--it

marched to where they stood, his kin, on their high station of majesty

by the grace of God and of St. Ladislas; to where his father sat, on

their age-old throne, crowned and sceptred and bearing the orb of empire

in his imperial palm; and it did not seem to know that they were divine

and sacred and inviolate: it seemed to care for nothing in its rough,

sombre, indifferent, unbelieving, roaring profanation; for suddenly,

fiercely, it dragged its black waves over them, dragged them with

it--his father, his mother, all of them--and they were things that had

been, they of the blood imperial, they became a legend in the glory of

the new day that rose over the black sea....

His ancestors stared at him and they seemed to him to be spectres,

themselves legends, falsities against which tradition would no longer

act as a protection. They seemed to him like ghosts, enemies.... He

opened wider his burning eyes upon their stiff, trained and robed or

harnessed figures, which seemed to step towards him from the eight

panels of the walls, in order to stifle him in their midst, to oppress

him in a narrow circle of nightmare on his panting breast, with iron

knees forcing the breath out of his lungs, with iron hands crushing his

head, from which the sweat trickled over his temples.

Then he felt afraid, like a little child that has been told creepy

stories, afraid of those ghosts of emperors, afraid of the glimpses of

visions which again flashed pictures of the inundations before him: the

meadow with the corpses, the men in the punt fishing up the woman. The

corpses began suddenly to come to life, to burst out laughing, with

slits of mouths and hollow eyes, as though they had been making a fool

of him, as though there had been no inundations; and the dusk of the

bed-chamber, filled with emperors, pressed down upon him as with

atmospheres of nitrogen.

"Andro! Andro!" he cried, in a smothered utterance and then louder, as

though in mortal anguish, "Andro! Andro!..."

The door at the end of the room was thrown open; the valet entered,

alarmed, in his night-clothes. The reality of his presence broke through

the enchantment of the night and exorcized the ghosts back into

portraits.

"Highness!..."

"Andro, come here...."

"Highness, what's the matter?... How you frightened me, highness! What

is it?... I thought...."

"What, Andro?"

"Nothing, highness. Your voice sounded so terribly hoarse! What's the

matter?..."

"I don't know, Andro: I am ill, I think; I can't sleep...."

The man wiped Othomar's clammy forehead with a handkerchief:

"Will your highness have anything to drink? A glass of water?..."

"No, thank you, thank you.... Andro, can you come and sleep in here?"

"If you wish it, highness...."

"Yes, here, at the foot of my bed. I believe I'm not very well,

Andro.... Bring your pillow in here."

The man looked at him. He was not much older than his prince. He had

waited on him from childhood and worshipped him with the worship of a

subject for majesty; he felt wholly bound to him, tied to him; he knew

that the prince was not strong, but also that he never complained....

Growing suddenly angry, he turned to go to his room and fetch his

pillow:

"No wonder, when they fag and tire you like this!" he cried, unable any

longer to restrain his fury. "General Ducardi no doubt thinks that you

have the same tough hide as himself!"

Muttering in his moustache, he went away, returned with his pillow and

laid it on the step of the bed of state:

"Are you feverish?" he asked.

"No ... yes, perhaps a little. It will pass off, Andro. I ... I am...."

He dared not say it.

"I am a little nervous," he continued; and his eyes went anxiously round

the room, where the emperors were once more standing quiet.

"Would you like a doctor fetched from Vaza?"

"No, no, Andro, by no means. What are you thinking of, to make such a

disturbance in the middle of the night? Go to sleep now, down there...."

"Will you try to sleep also then, my 'princie'?" he asked, with the

endearing diminutive which in his language sounded like a caress.

Othomar nodded with a smile and suffered him to shake up his pillows

after the manner of a nurse.

"What a bed!" muttered Andro. "It might be a monument in a cemetery!..."

Then he lay down again, but did not sleep; he stayed awake. And, when

Othomar asked, after an interval:

"Are you asleep, Andro?"

"Yes, your highness," he answered, "nearly."

"Is there anything murmuring in the distance? Is it water or ... or is

it my fancy?"

The man listened:

"I can hear nothing, highness.... You must be a little feverish."

"Take a chair and come and sit by the head of the bed...."

The man did as he was told.

"And let me feel you near me: give me your hand, so...."

At last Othomar closed his eyes. In his ears the buzzing continued,

still continued.... But under the very buzzing, while the lightness in

his head lifted like a mist, the Crown-prince of Liparia fell asleep,

his clammy hand in the hard hand of his body-servant, who watched his

master's restless sleep in the quivering round the mouth, the jerking of

the body, until, to quiet him, he softly stroked the throbbing forehead

with his other hand, muttering compassionately, with his strange,

national voice of caress:

"My poor princie!..."

The dawn rose outside; the daylight seemed to push the window-curtains

asunder.

5

The next morning the duchess was to preside at the breakfast-table: she

was in the dining-room with all the gentlemen when Othomar entered, as

the last, with Dutri. His uniform of blue, white and silver fitted him

tightly; and he saluted, smilingly, but a little stiffly, while Herman

shook hands with him and the others bowed, the duchess curtseying

deeply.

"How pale the prince looks!" Leoni said to Ducardi.

It was true: the prince looked very pale; his eyes were dull, but he

bore himself manfully, ate a little fish, trifled with a salmi of game.

Yet the prince's fatigue was so evident that Ducardi asked him, softly,

across the table:

"Is your highness not feeling well?..."

All eyes were raised to Othomar. He wished to give the lie to their

sympathy:

"I'm all right," he replied.

"Did your highness have a bad night?" continued Ducardi.

"Not very good," Othomar was compelled to acknowledge, with a smile.

The conversation continued, the duchess gave it a new turn; but after

breakfast, on the point of departure--the horses stood saddled in the

courtyard--Ducardi said, bluntly:

"We should do better not to go, highness."

Othomar was astonished, refused to understand.

"You look a little fatigued, highness," added Ducardi, shortly; and,

more softly, deprecatingly, "And it's not surprising either, that the

last few days have been too much for you. If your highness will permit

me, I would recommend you to take a rest to-day."

Already a soft feeling of relaxation overcame the prince; he felt too

much delighted at this idea of rest to continue his resistance. Yet his

conscience pricked him at the thought of his father: a feeling of shame

in case the emperor should hear of his exhaustion, which seemed so

clearly evident.

And he absolutely insisted that the expedition should not be abandoned

altogether. He yielded to Ducardi in so far as not to go himself and to

take repose, provided that they thought he needed it; but he urgently

begged Prince Herman and the others to follow the route planned out for

that day and to go. And this he said with youthful haughtiness, already

relieved at the thought of the day of repose before him--a whole day,

unexpectedly!--but above all afraid of allowing his joy to be perceived

and therefore sulking a little, as though he wished to go too, as though

he thought General Ducardi foolish, with his advice....

The gentlemen went. The duchess herself conducted Othomar to the west

wing, pressed him to rest in her own boudoir. Through the windows of the

gallery Othomar saw Herman and the others riding away; he followed them

for an instant with his eyes, then went on with the duchess and across

the courtyard saw a groom lead back to the stables the horse that had

been saddled for him, patting its neck. He was still disturbed by

mingled emotions: the pleasant anticipation of resting, a little anxiety

lest he should betray himself, a certain feeling of shame....

In the boudoir the duchess left him alone. It was quiet there; outside,

the lordly fallow-deer grazed peacefully. The repose of the boudoir of a

woman of the world, with the rich, silent drapery of silken stuffs, the

inviting luxury of soft furniture, the calm brilliancy of ornaments each

a costly object of art, surrounded him with a hushed breathlessness,

like a haze of muslin, fragrant with an indefinable, gentle emanation,

which was that woman's very perfume. The indolence of this present

moment suddenly overwhelmed Othomar, a little strangely, and dissolved

his thoughts in gentle bewilderment. He felt like a runaway horse that

has suddenly been pulled up and stands still.

He sat down for a minute and looked out at the deer. Then he rose,

reflected whether he should ring and thought better to look round for

himself. On the duchess' little writing-table--Japanese lacquer inlaid

with mother-of-pearl landscapes and ivory storks--he found a sheet of

paper, a pencil.

And he wrote:

"To HER MAJESTY ELIZABETH

"EMPRESS OF LIPARIA.

"CASTEL VAZA,

"--_April_, 18--.

"Pray do not be alarmed if the newspapers exaggerate and say that I am

ill. I was a little fatigued and Ducardi advised me to rest to-day.

Herman and the others have gone on; to-morrow I hope myself to lead our

second expedition from here. The day after that we go to Lycilia.

"OTHOMAR."

Then he rang and, when the footman appeared:

"My valet, Andro."

In a few moments Andro appeared. "Ask for a horse, Andro," said Othomar,

"ride to Vaza and dispatch this telegram as quickly as you can to her

majesty the empress...."

Andro went out and the strange, indolent vacancy overcame Othomar once

more. The sun shone over the park, the deer gleamed with coats like

cigar-coloured satin. The last fortnight passed once more before

Othomar's eyes. And it was as though, in the vistas of that very short

past, he saw spreading out like one great whole, one vast picture of

human distress, the misery which he had beheld and endeavoured to

soften. And the great affliction that filled the land made his heart

beat full of pity. A slack feeling of melancholy, that there was so much

affliction and that he was so impotent, once more rose within him, as it

never failed to do when he was alone and able to reflect. Then he felt

himself small, insignificant, fit for nothing; and something in his soul

fell feebly, helplessly from a factitious height, without energy and

without will. Then that something lay there in despair and upon it,

heavy with all its sorrow, the whole empire, crushing it with its

weight.

Serious strikes had broken out in the eastern quicksilver-mines, beyond

the Gigants. He remembered once making a journey there and suffering

when he saw the strange, ashy-pale faces of the workmen, who stared at

him with great, hollow eyes and who underwent a slow death through their

own livelihood, in a poisonous atmosphere. And he knew that what he had

then seen was a holiday sight, the most prosperous sight that they were

able to show him; that he would never see the black depths of their

wretchedness, because he was the crown-prince. And he could do nothing

for them and, if they raised their heads still more fiercely than they

were doing now, the troops, which had already started for the district,

would shoot them down like dogs.

He panted loudly, as though to pant away the weight upon his chest, but

it fell back again. The image of his father came before his mind, high,

certain, conscious of himself, unwavering, always knowing what to do,

confident that majesty was infallible, writing signatures with big, firm

letters, curtly: "Oscar." Everything signed like that, "Oscar," was

immaculate in its righteousness as fate itself. How different was he,

the son! Then did the old race of might and authority begin to yield

with him, as with a sudden crack of the spine, an exhaustion of the

marrow?

Then he saw his mother, a Roumanian princess, loving her near ones so

dearly; womanliness, motherliness personified, in their small circle; to

the people, haughty, inaccessible, tactless as he was, unpopular, as he

was, too, at least in Lipara and the southern part of the empire. He

knew it: beneath that rigid inaccessibility she concealed her terror,

terror when she sat in an open carriage, at the theatre, at ceremonial

functions, or in church, or even at visits to charitable institutions.

This terror had killed within her all her great love for humanity and

had morbidly concentrated her soul, which was inclined by nature to take

a wider outlook, upon love for that small circle of theirs. And beneath

this terror hid her acquiescence, her expectation of the catastrophe,

the upheaval in which she and hers were to perish!...

He was their son, the heir to their throne: whence did he derive his

impotent hesitation, which his father did not possess, and his love for

their people, which his mother no longer possessed? His ancestors he

knew only by what history had taught him: in the earlier middle-ages,

barbarian, cruel; later, displaying a refined sensuality; one monarch, a

weakling, ruled entirely by favourites, a _roi-fainéant_, under whom the

empire had fallen a prey to intestinal divisions and foreign greed;

afterwards, more civilized, a revival of strength, a reaction of

progress after decline, followed by the glory and greatness of the

empire to the present day.... To the present day: to him came this

inheritance of greatness and glory. How would he handle it, how would he

in his turn transmit it to his son?

Then he felt himself so small, so timid that he could have run away

somewhither, away from the gaping eyes of his future obligations....

6

The luncheon had all the intimacy of a most charming _tête-à-tête_,

served in the small dining-room, with only the steward waiting at table.

The duchess enquired very sympathetically how Othomar was; the prince

already felt really rested, showed a good appetite, was gay and

talkative, praised the cook and the famous lycilian wine. When the

duchess after luncheon proposed to him to go for a small excursion in

the neighbourhood, he thought it an excellent idea. He himself wished to

ride--he knew that the duchess was an excellent horsewoman--but Alexa

dissuaded him, laughingly, said that she was afraid of General Ducardi,

who had recommended the prince to rest, and thought that a little drive

in an open carriage would be less tiring. She had remembered betimes

that a riding-habit made her look old and heavy; and she was very glad

when the prince gave way.

The weather had remained delightful: a mild sun in a blue sky. The

landscape stretched wide, the mountains stood shrill and steep, pointing

their ice-laden crests into the ether. The drive had all the charm of an

incognito free from etiquette, with the prince, in his undress uniform,

seated beside the duchess, in a simple, dark gown of mauve corduroy

velvet, in the elegant, light victoria, on which the coachman sat alone,

without a footman, setting the two slender bays briskly about. The sun

gleamed in patches over the horses' sleek hides and cast its reflections

in the varnish of the carriage, in the facets of the cut-glass lamps, on

the coachman's tall hat and in the buttons of Othomar's uniform. All

this sparkle scintillated with short, bright flashes; and thus, lightly

flickering, the carriage glided along the road, through a couple of

villages, whose inhabitants saluted their duchess, but did not know who

the simple young officer was, sitting beside her. A breeze had dried

away the dampness of the preceding days and light clouds of dust blew up

from under the quick-rolling wheels.

The duchess talked fluently, of Lipara, the emperor, the empress. She

possessed the tact of knowing intuitively what to say and what to speak

about, when she was anxious to please. Her voice was a charm. She was

sometimes capable of great simplicity and naturalness, generally when

she was not thinking of making an impression. Intuitively she assumed

towards the prince, to make him like her, that same simplicity which was

her nature. It made her seem years younger: the smart brusqueness that

was in fashion flattered her much less and made her appear older and

even vulgar, whereas now she grew refined in the natural distinction of

an ancient race. The little black veil on her hat hid the ugly wrinkles

about her eyes, which gleamed through it like stars.

The prince remembered stories told by his equerries--including

Dutri--about the duchess; he remembered names mentioned in a whisper. He

did not at this minute believe in these slanders, as he considered them

to be. Sensible as he was to sympathy, he was won over by hers, which he

read in her intuitively; and it made him think well and kindly of her,

as he thought of all who liked him.

The carriage had been going between terraces of vineyards, when

suddenly, as though by surprise, it drove past a castle, half-visible

through some very ancient chestnut-trees.

"What estate is that?" asked the prince. "Who are your neighbours,

duchess?"

"No one less than Zanti, highness," replied the duchess: she shivered,

but tried to jest. "Balthazar Zanti lives here, with his daughter."

"Zanti! Balthazar Zanti!" cried Othomar, in a tone of astonishment.

He stood up and looked curiously at the castle, which lay hidden behind

the chestnut-trees:

"But how is it, duchess, that last year, when I was hunting here with

the emperor, with the duke, I never heard of Prince Zanti or that he

lived here?"

The duchess laughed:

"Presumably, highness, because the duke's covers lie in the opposite

direction"--she made a vague gesture--"and you never drove past this way

and because his majesty will never suffer the name of Balthazar Zanti to

be uttered in his presence."

"But none of the equerries...."

The duchess laughed still more merrily, looked at the prince, who was

also chuckling, and said:

"It is certainly unpardonable of them not to have informed you more

fully of the curiosities in the province of Vaza. But ... now that I

think of it, highness, it's quite natural. The castle was empty last

year: Zanti was travelling about the country, making speeches. You

remember, they were afterwards forbidden by law. His name, therefore,

had no local significance here at the time...."

The prince was still staring at the castle, which never came fully into

view, when the carriage, in a turn of the road, almost touched a little

group as it drove past them, against the slope of a vineyard: an old

man, a young girl, a dog. The girl was frail, slender, pale,

fair-haired, dressed in furs in spite of the sun and retaining beneath

them a certain morbid elegance; she sat on the grass, wearing a dark fur

toque on her silvery fair hair; her long, white hand, ungloved,

soothingly and insistingly patted the curly head of the retriever, which

barked at the carriage. Next to her stood a tall, erect old man, looking

eccentric in a wide, grey smock-frock: a grey giant, with a heavy beard

and sombre eyes, which shone with a dull light from under the brim of a

soft felt hat. The dog barked; the girl bowed--she recognized the

duchess as a neighbour--without knowing who the prince was; the old man,

however, looked straight before him, frowning and making no sign. The

carriage rattled past.

"That was Zanti," whispered the duchess.

"Zanti!" repeated the prince. "And how long has he been living here?"

"Only a very short time: I believe the doctors think the air of Vaza

good for his daughter."

"Was that young girl his daughter?"

"Yes, highness. I have seen her once before; she appears to be

delicate."

"Prince Zanti, is he not?"

"Certainly, highness; but, by his own wish, Zanti quite plain.... Titles

are all nonsense in the nineteenth century, highness."

She jested and yet felt a silent shudder, she knew not why. She thought

it ominous that Zanti had come to live so near to Castel Vaza.

Shivering, she gave a quick side-glance at the prince. She perceived a

strange pensiveness drawing over his face like a shadow. Then, to change

the conversation and to think no longer of that horrid man:

"You are looking much better, highness, than you did this morning. The

air has done you good...."

She suppressed her shiver. The prince, on the other hand, remained

strange: a sudden emotion seemed to be stirring within him. When they

were back at the castle, in the boudoir, the duchess offered herself to

make the prince a cup of tea. He stood looking out of the window at the

deer, but, while she busied herself with the crested, gilt array of her

tea-table, she saw him turn pale, white as chalk--as he had looked that

morning--his eyes dilating strangely:

"What is the matter, highness?" she cried, in alarm, approaching him.

He turned towards her, tried to laugh:

"I beg your pardon, duchess; I am very discourteous ... to behave like

this, but ... but that man took me by surprise." He laughed. "I did not

know that he was here; and then the air ... that rarefied air...."

He put his hand to his forehead; she saw him grow paler, his blood

seemed to be running out of him, he staggered....

"Highness!" she cried.

But Othomar, groping vaguely with his hand for a support, fell up

against her; she caught him in her arm, against her bosom, mortally

frightened, and saw that he had swooned. A thin sweat stood on his

forehead; his eyes closed beneath their weary lids, as though they were

dying away; his mouth was open without breathing.

The duchess was violently alarmed; she was mortally frightened lest

anything serious should happen to the Duke of Xara, alone with her in

the castle; she suddenly felt that the future of Liparia was entrusted

to the support of her arms; she already saw the prince lying dead,

herself disgraced at the Imperial.... All this flashed across her brain

at the first moment. But she looked at him long; and a gentle expression

overspread her face: pride, that the Duke of Xara lay there

half-fainting on her shoulder, and sudden passion, containing much

motherliness and pity, blended into a strange feeling in her soul. She

softly smoothed back his hair, wiped his perspiring forehead with her

handkerchief.... And the strange sensation became still stranger within

her, intenser in its two constituent parts: intenser in pride, intenser

in compassionate love, that of a mistress and mother in one. Then, with

a smile, she pressed the handkerchief, lightly moistened with the

imperial sweat, to her trembling lips. The soft aroma of the moisture

seemed to intoxicate her with a fragrance of virile youth.... She

thought of the letters and photographs in the silver casket with the

turquoises. A deep melancholy, because of life, smarted through her

soul; yet more of her memories seemed to fly away like dust. Then,

refusing to yield any longer to this melancholy, she bent her head and,

serious now, giving herself to the present, which revived her with new

happiness, she pressed her lips, trembling still more than before, on

Othomar's mouth. For a moment she lingered there; her eyes closed; then

she gave her kiss.

They opened their eyes together, looked at each other. Earnestly sombre,

almost tragically, she flashed her glance into his. He said nothing,

remained gazing at her, still half in her arms. The colour came mantling

back to his cheeks. Their eyes imbibed one another. He felt the unknown

opening before him, he felt himself being initiated into the world of

knowledge which he suspected in her and did not know of himself. But he

felt no joy because of it; her eyes continued sombre. Then he merely

took her hand, just pressed it in a solitary caress and said, his eyes

still gazing into her deep, quiet, dark glances of passion, his features

still rigid with surprise:

"I was feeling a little giddy, I fear, just now? Please forgive me,

duchess...."

She too continued to look at him, at first sombrely, then in smiling

humility. Her pride soared to its climax with one beat of its wings: the

mouth of her future emperor was still sealed with her kiss! Her love

touched her inner life as a wafting breeze skims over a lake, rippling

its surface into utter silver with a single fresh gust and stirring it

to its very depths; she worshipped him because of his youthful majesty,

which so graciously accepted her kiss without further acknowledgment,

because of his imperial candour, his boyish voice, his boyish eyes, the

pressure of his hand: the only thing he had given her; and she

experienced all this as a very strange, proud pleasure: the delight of

assimilating that candid youth, that maiden manhood, as a magic potion

that should restore her own youth to her.

7

They dined late that evening, as they had waited for Herman and the

others. The conversation at table turned upon the condition of the

lowlands, upon the peasants, who had lost their all. The duchess was

silent; the conversation did not interest her, but her silence was

smiling and tranquil.

That evening Othomar again studied the map with Ducardi, under the

lace-covered lamp. The evening had turned cold, the terrace-doors were

closed. The duchess did not feel inclined for billiards, but sat talking

softly with Dutri in the second drawing-room. She looked superb, serene

as a statue, in her dress of old lace, pale-yellow, her white bosom

rising evenly with her regular breathing; a single diamond star gleamed

in her front hair.

Othomar pointed with the pencil across the map:

"Then we can go like this, along this road.... Look, General Ducardi;

look here, Colonel von Fest: this is where I drove this afternoon with

the duchess; and here, I believe, is where Zanti lives. Did you know

that?"

The officers looked up, looked down at the spot to which the

crown-prince pointed, expressed surprise:

"I thought that he lived in the south, in Thracyna," said the young

Count of Thesbia.

Othomar repeated what the duchess had told him.

"Zanti!" cried Herman. "Balthazar Zanti? Why, but then it is he!... I

was talking this afternoon to a party of peasants; they told me of the

new huts which a new landlord was fitting up in the neighbourhood, but

they spoke in dialect and I could not understand them clearly; I thought

they said Xanti and I never suspected that it could be Balthazar Zanti.

So he's the man!"

"Huts?" asked Othomar.

"Yes, a village of huts, it seems; they said he was so rich and so

generous and was housing I don't know how many peasants, who had lost

all that they possessed."

"I now remember reading in the papers that Zanti had gone to live at

Vaza," said Leoni.

"I should like to see those huts: we can take them on our way

to-morrow," said Othomar.

General Ducardi compressed his bushy eyebrows:

"You know, highness, that his majesty is anything but enamoured of Zanti

and is even thinking of exiling him. It would perhaps be more in

accordance with his majesty's views to ignore what Zanti is doing here

for the moment."

Othomar, however, was not disposed to yield to the general; a youthful

combativeness welled in his breast.

"But, general, to ignore anybody's good work in these times is neither

gracious nor politic."

"I am convinced that, if his majesty knew that Zanti was occupying his

castle here, he would have specially requested your highness to hold no

communication with the man," said Ducardi, with emphasis.

"I am not so sure of that, general," said Othomar, drily. "I believe, on

the contrary, that, if his majesty knew that Zanti was doing so much for

the victims of the inundations, his majesty would overlook a good deal

of his amateur communism."

Ducardi gnawed his moustache with a wry smile:

"Your highness speaks rather light-heartedly of that amateur communism.

Zanti's theories and practice are more than mere dilettantism...."

"But, general," rejoined Othomar, gently, "I really do not understand

why Zanti's socialism need prevent us at this moment--I repeat, at this

particular moment--from appreciating what he is doing, nor why it need

interfere with our visiting his huts, considering that we have come to

Vaza to inform ourselves of everything that concerns the

inundations...."

Ducardi looked at him angrily. He was not accustomed to being

contradicted like this by his highness. The others listened. The duchess

herself, attracted by the discussion, amid which she heard Othomar's

voice ringing with youthful authority, had approached with Dutri,

curiously.

"To say the least of it, it could do no harm just to see those huts: I

must grant my cousin as much as that, general," said Herman of Gothland,

who was beginning to like Othomar.

Von Fest also supported this view, convincingly, roundly, honestly,

thought that they could do no less, having regard to the victims whom

Zanti had housed. Every one now gave his opinion: Leoni thought it

impossible that the crown-prince should visit Vaza and not those huts;

it would look as though his highness were afraid of a bugbear like

Zanti. The fact that Othomar was contradicting Ducardi gave them all

grounds for thwarting the old general, who hitherto had conducted the

expedition with a sort of military tyranny which had frequently annoyed

them. Even Dutri, who as a rule was rather indifferent, joined forces

with them, cynically, his eyes gleaming because Ducardi for once was

being put in his place. He winked at the duchess.

And only Siridsen and Thesbia took Ducardi's side, hesitating because

the general declared with such conviction that the emperor's will would

be different from his son's wish; especially Thesbia:

"I can't understand why the prince insists so," he whispered to the

duchess in alarm. "Ducardi's right: you yourself know how the emperor

loathes Zanti...."

The duchess shrugged her handsome shoulders with a smile, listening to

Othomar, whom she heard defending himself, supported by ejaculations and

nods from the others.

"Well," she heard Ducardi answer, drily, "if your highness absolutely

insists that we should go to Zanti's, we will go; I only hope that your

highness will always remember that I did not agree with you in this

matter...."

The Duke of Xara now answered laughingly, was the first to make peace

after this victory; and, as to the rest of the route to Lycilia, which

they worked out on the map, he agreed with the general in everything,

with little flattering intonations of approval and appreciation of his

penetrating and practical judgement....

"He may not have the makings of a great commander," whispered Dutri to

the duchess, "but he will turn out a first-rate little diplomatist...."

But Ducardi was inwardly very angry. For a moment he thought of

ascertaining the emperor's wishes by a secret telegram, but he rejected

this idea, as it would make a bad impression at the Imperial if the Duke

of Xara were not left free in such an apparent trifle. He therefore only

attempted, next morning, once more to dissuade Othomar from the visit,

but the prince held firm.

"You seem very much opposed to this expedition, general," said Von Fest.

"Isn't it really quite reasonable?"

"You don't know the prejudice his majesty has against that man,

colonel," replied the general. "As I have told you before, his majesty

is thinking of exiling him and is sure to do so when he hears that he

has now shut himself in his castle, doubtless with the object of

stirring up the peasantry, as he has already stirred up the workmen in

the towns. The man is a dangerous fanatic, colonel: dangerous especially

because he has money with which to put his visions into practice. He

instigates the lower orders not to fulfil their military duties because

it is written: 'Thou shalt not kill.' He looks upon marriage as a

useless sacrament; and I have heard that his followers simply come to

him and that he marries them himself, with a sort of blessing, which in

its turn is based upon a text, I forget which. He is always writing

socialistic pamphlets, which are promptly seized and suppressed, and he

makes seditious speeches. And the man is even standing for the house of

deputies!"

"One who abjures his title a member of the house of deputies!" smiled

Von Fest.

"Oh, his doctrine swarms with such inconsistencies!" growled Ducardi.

"He will tell you of course that, so long as there is nothing better

than the house of deputies, he is content to be a member of it. And the

crown-prince wants to take notice of what a man like that does!"

Von Fest shrugged his shoulders:

"Let him be, general. The prince is young. He wants to know and see

things. That's a good sign."

"But ... the emperor will never approve of it, colonel!" thundered the

general, with an oath.

Again Von Fest shrugged his shoulders:

"Nevertheless I should not dissuade him any longer, general. If the

prince wants a thing, let him have it, it will do him good.... And, if

he gets blown up by his father afterwards, that will do him good too, by

way of reaction."

Ducardi looked him straight in the face:

"What do you think of our prince?" he asked, point-blank.

Von Fest returned the general's glance, smilingly, looking straight into

his searching eyes. He was honest by nature and upright, but enough of a

courtier to be able to dissimulate when he thought necessary:

"A most charming lad," he replied. "But life--or rather he himself--will

have to change him very much if he is to hold his own ... later on."

The officers understood each other. Ducardi heaved a deep sigh:

"Yes, there are difficult times coming," he said, with an oath.

"Yes," answered the Gothlandic colonel, simply.

The princes mounted their horses in the courtyard; they took the same

road along which Othomar had driven with the duchess the previous

afternoon past Zanti's castle. Leoni had learnt where the huts lay; the

mountains began to retreat, the road wound curve after curve beneath the

trampling hoofs of the horses. Suddenly the Zanthos spread itself out on

the horizon: the wide expanse of flooded water, one great lake under the

broad, gleaming, vernal sky.

"That must be they," said Leoni.

His finger pointed to a hamlet of long wooden buildings, evidently newly

built, smelling of fresh timber in the morning breeze. As they rode

nearer, they saw carpenters and masons; a whole work-yard came into

view, full of busy movement, with stacks of red bricks and piles of long

planks. Singing was heard, with a pious intonation, as of psalms.

Ducardi, whose custom was always to ride in front, to the left of the

crown-prince, deliberately reined in his horse, allowed the others to

come up with him; Othomar perceived that he did not wish to act on this

occasion. He thought it petty of the general and said to Thesbia:

"Ask if Zanti is here."

The aide-de-camp turned and put the question to a sort of foreman. None

of the workpeople had saluted; the equerries doubted whether they had

recognized the crown-prince. Yes, Zanti was there. Plain "Zanti." Very

well, he would fetch him.

The man went. He was long away. Othomar, waiting with the others on

horseback, already began to find his position difficult, lost his tact,

assumed his stiff rigidity, talked in forced tones to Herman. He found

it difficult to wait when one had never done so hitherto. It made him

nervous and he made his horse, which was tugging at the reins with

skittish movements of its head, nervous too and was already thinking

whether it would not be better to ride on....

But just then Zanti, with the foreman who had called him, approached,

slowly, making no effort to hurry. He looked under his hand from a

distance at the group of officers on horseback, flashing in the

sunlight; stood still; asked the foreman some question or other; looked

again.

"The unmannerly fellow!" muttered Thesbia.

The aide-de-camp rode up to him angrily, spoke in a loud voice of his

imperial highness the Duke of Xara; the duke wished to see the huts.

"They are not huts," said Zanti, in peevish contradiction.

"What then?" asked the aide, haughtily.

"Dwellings," answered Zanti, curtly.

Thesbia shrugged his shoulders with annoyance. But the crown-prince

himself had ridden up and saluted Zanti before the latter had vouchsafed

any greeting:

"Will your excellency give us leave to look at what you are doing for

the victims of the inundations?" he asked, politely, gently, graciously.

"I'm not an excellency," muttered the grey-beard, "but, if you like to

look, you can."

"We should like to," replied Othomar, a little haughtily, "but not

unless we have your entire approval. You are the master on your own

estate; and, if our visit is unwelcome, we will not force our presence

on you."

Zanti looked him in the eyes:

"I repeat, if you like to look round, you can. But there is not much to

see. Everything is so simple. We make no secret of what we do. And the

estate is not mine: it belongs to all of them."

Othomar dismounted, the others followed; with difficulty Leoni and

Thesbia found a couple of boys to hold the horses in return for a tip.

Othomar and Herman had already walked ahead with the old man:

"I hear that you are doing much good work to mitigate the disaster of

the inundations," said Othomar.

"The inundation is not a disaster."

"Not a disaster!" asked Herman, surprised. "What then?"

"A just punishment of heaven. And there will be more punishments. We

live in sinful times."

The princes exchanged a quick glance; they saw that the conversation

would not go very easily.

"But the sinners whom heaven punishes you assist for all that, Mr.

Zanti," said Herman. "For all these huts...."

"Are not huts. They are sheds, workshops or temporary dwellings. They

will grow into a settlement, if such be God's will ... to enable men to

live simply, by their work. Life is so simple, but man has made it so

strange and complicated."

"But you take in the peasants who have lost their all through the

inundations?" Herman persisted.

"I don't take them. When they feel their sins, they come to me and I

save them from destruction."

"And do they not come to you also without feeling their sins, because

they feel that they will get food and lodging for nothing?"

"They get no food and lodging for nothing: they have to work here, sir!"

said the old man. "And perhaps more than you, who walk about in a

uniform.... They are paid, according to the amount of work they do, out

of the common fund. They are building here and I build with them. Do you

see this tree here and this axe? I was employed in felling down this

tree when you came and interrupted me."

"A capital exercise," said Herman. "You look a vigorous man."

"So you say you are forming a settlement here?" asked Othomar.

"Yes, sir. The cities are corrupt; life in the country is purifying.

Here they live; farther on lies arable land, which I give them, and

pasture-land; I shall buy cattle for them."

"So you are simply trying to recruit farmers here?" asked Herman.

"No, sir!" answered the grey-beard gruffly. "I recruit no farmers; they

are not my farmers. They are their own farmers. They work for themselves

and I am a simple farmer like them. We are all equal...."

"You are a simple farmer," Prince Herman echoed, "yet you live in a

castle."

"No, young man," replied Zanti, "I do not live in a castle; I live

_here_; my daughter lives there by herself. She is ill.... She would not

be able to stand an alteration in her mode of life, or any deprivation.

But she will not live long...."

He glanced up, looked at the Princes alternately, askance, almost

anxiously:

"She is my only weakness, I think," he said, in a faint, deprecating

voice. "She is my sin; I have called in doctors for her and believe in

what they say and prescribe. You see, she would not be able to do it ...

to follow me in all things, for she has too much of the past in her poor

blood. For her, a castle and comfort are necessities, vital necessities.

Therefore I leave her there.... But she will not live long.... And then

I shall sell it and divide the money, every penny of it, among them

all.... You see, that is my weakness, my sin; I am only human...."

The princes saw him display emotion; his hands trembled. Then he seemed

to feel that he had already spoken to them too much and too long of what

lay nearest to his heart, his sin. And he pointed to the buildings,

explained their uses....

"I have read some of your pamphlets, Mr. Zanti," said the crown-prince.

"Do you apply your ideas on matrimony here?"

"I apply nothing," the grey-beard growled, resuming his tone of

contradiction. "I leave them free to do as they please. If they wish to

get married according to your law, they can; but, if they come to me, I

bless them and let them go in peace, for it is written, 'Again I say to

you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing

whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my father who is

in heaven. For where there are two or three gathered together in my

name, there am I in the midst of them.'"

"And how do you rule so many followers?" asked Herman.

"I don't rule them, sir!" roared the old man, clenching his fists, his

face red with fury. "I am no more than any of them. The father has

authority in his own household and the old men give advice, because they

have experience: that is all. Life is so simple...."

"As you picture it, but not in reality," objected Herman.

Zanti looked at him angrily, stopped still, to be able to talk with

greater ease, and, passionately, violently, exclaimed:

"And do you in reality find it better than I picture it? I do not, sir,

and I hope to turn my picture into reality. You and yours once, ages

ago, made your picture reality; now it is the turn of us others: your

reality has lasted long enough...."

Othomar, haughtily, tried to say something in opposition; the old man,

however, suddenly turned to him and, gently though roughly, said, his

penetrating, fanatical voice which made Othomar shudder:

"For you, sir, I feel pity! I do not hate you, although you may think I

do. I hate nobody. The older I have grown, the less I have learned to

hate, the more softness has entered into me. See here: I hear something

in your voice and see something in your eyes that ... that attracts me,

sir. I tell you this straight out. It is very foolish of me, perhaps, to

talk like this to my future emperor. But it is so: something in you

attracts me. And I feel pity for you. Do you know why? Because the time

will come!"

He suddenly pointed upwards, with a strange impressiveness, and

continued:

"The hour will come. Perhaps it is very near. If it does not come in

your father's reign, it will come in your reign or your son's. But come

it will! And therefore I feel pity for you. For you will not have enough

love for your people. Not enough love to say to them, 'I am as all of

you and nothing more. I will possess no more than any of you, for I do

not want abundance while you suffer need. I will not rule over you, for

I am only a human being like yourselves and no more human than you.' Are

you more human? If you were more, then you would be entitled to rule,

yes, then, then ... See here, young man: you will never have so much

love for your people as to do all this, oh, and more still and more! You

will govern and possess abundance and wage war. But the time will come!

Therefore I have pity for you ... although I oughtn't to!"

Othomar had turned pale; even Herman gave a little shudder. It was more

because of the oracular voice of the man who was prophesying the doom of

their sovereignty than because of his words. But Herman shook off his

shudder and, angrily, haughtily:

"I cannot say that you are polite to your _guests_, Mr. Zanti," he said.

"I do not speak of his imperial highness...."

Zanti looked at Othomar:

"Forgive me," he said. "I spoke like that for your sake. Your eyes are

like my daughter's. That's why I spoke as I did."

Herman burst out laughing:

"A valid reason, no doubt, Mr. Zanti."

Othomar, however, signed to him to cease his tone of persiflage and also

with a glance restrained his equerries, who had listened to Zanti's

oracular utterances in speechless indignation: the old man had addressed

Othomar almost in a whisper. His last words, however, which resounded

with emotion, changed this indignation into bewilderment, calmed their

anger, made them regard the prophet as half a madman, whose treason the

crown-prince was graciously pleased to excuse. And the officers looked

at one another, raised their eyebrows, shrugged their shoulders. Dutri

grinned. Othomar asked Zanti coolly whether they had not better proceed.

The settlement was very much in its first stage; yet a few farm-houses

were beginning to rise up, chestnut-trees lay felled, hundreds of

peasants were busily working.

The group of officers excited great curiosity; the princes had been

recognized. On almost every side the people stopped work, followed the

uniforms with their eyes.

The princes and their suite felt instinctively that a hostile feeling

was passing through Zanti's peasants. When they asked a question here

and there about the sufferings experienced, the answer sounded curt and

rough, with a reference to the will of God, and was always like an echo

of Zanti's own words. Pecuniary assistance seemed uncalled for. And

Zanti had really nothing to show. The settlement made a poor impression

on Othomar, perhaps because of a sort of mortified sovereignty. He was

accustomed always to be approached with respect, as a future majesty;

and his sensitiveness was more deeply wounded by Zanti's bluntness, by

the surliness of Zanti's peasants, than he himself was willing to admit.

He felt that at this spot they saw in him not the crown-prince who loved

his people and wanted to learn how to succour them, but the son of a

tyrant, who would act as a tyrant also when his turn came. He felt that,

though Zanti called himself the apostle of peace, this peace was not in

his disciples; and, when he looked into their rough, sullen faces, he

saw hatred gleam luridly from deep, hollow eyes, as with sudden

lightning-flashes....

The weight of it all fell heavily upon his chest; his impotence pressed

with a world of inconsolable misery and unappeasable grief upon his

shoulders, as though to bear him to the ground. It was the misery and

grief not of one, but of thousands, millions. Vindictive eyes multiplied

themselves around him in a ferment of hatred; each one of his people who

asked happiness of him, demanding it and not receiving it, seemed to be

there, staring at him with those wide eyes....

He felt himself turning giddy with an immense feeling of helplessness.

He looked for nothing more, this was the end. And he was not surprised

at what happened: the man with the brown, hairy, distorted face, who

rushed upon him like a nightmare and laid hold of him, full of hatred. A

foul, tobacco-laden breath swept over his face, a coarse knife in a

coarse fist flashed towards his throat....

A cry arose. A shot rang out, sharp, determined, with no suspicion of

hesitation. The man cursed out a hoarse yell, gnashing his teeth in

revolt, and struggled, dying. His brains splashed over Othomar, soiling

the prince's uniform. And the man plumped down at his feet on the

ground, grown limp at once, with relaxed muscles, still clutching the

knife in his hairy fingers. All this had happened in a single instant.

It was Von Fest who had fired the shot from a revolver. The colonel drew

up his broad figure, looked around him, still held the revolver raised

at a threatening slant. The people stood staring, motionless, perplexed

by the sudden reality before their eyes.

Zanti, stupefied, gazed at the corpse; then he said, while the startled

officers stood by in fussy confusion around the prince:

"Now go and, if you can, go in peace!..."

Full of bitterness, he pointed to the corpse. He shook his head, with

the grey locks under the felt hat; tears sprang to the corners of his

eyes.

"Thou shalt not kill!" they heard him mutter. "They seem not to know

that yet; nobody knows it yet!..."

A strange, mad look troubled his normally clear, grey eyes; he seemed

for a moment not to know what he should do. Then he went to a tree,

caught up the axe and, without taking further notice of the princes,

began to hew like a lunatic, blow upon blow....

The officers hurried to their horses. Dutri gave a last look back: near

the corpse, now surrounded by peasants, he saw a woman standing; she

sobbed, her desperate arms flung to heaven, she howled, she shook her

fist at the equerry's turned face, screaming.

Othomar had said nothing. He heard the woman howling behind him. He

quivered in every nerve. On the road, preparing to mount, Ducardi asked

him, agitatedly:

"Shall we return to Castel Vaza, highness?"

The prince looked at the general haughtily. Quickly the thought flashed

through him that the general had strongly opposed his coming here. He

shook his head.

Then his eyes sought Von Fest: they glanced up at the colonel under

their eyelids, deep-black, moist, almost reproachful.

But he held out his hand:

"Thank you, colonel," he said, in a husky voice.

The colonel pressed the hand which the prince offered him:

"Glad to be of service, highness!" he replied, with soldierly

brusqueness.

"And now let us go on to the Zanthos," said Othomar, walking up to his

horse.

But the old general could master himself no longer. In these last

moments he had felt all his passionate love--seated hereditarily, firmly

in his blood, of a piece with him, his very soul and all that soul--for

the reigning house. His fathers had died for it in battle, without

hesitation. And with the mad, wide embrace of his long, powerful old

arms, he ran up to Othomar, grateful that he was alive, pressed him as

if he would crush him against his breast, until the buttons of his

uniform scratched Othomar's cheek, and cried, sobbing, under his

trembling moustache:

"My prince, my prince, my prince!..."

8

The attempt on Othomar's life was known at Castel Vaza before the

princes returned, from peasants of the duke's, who had told the

castle-servants long stories of how the prince had been severely

wounded. The duchess had at first refused to believe it; then, in rising

anxiety, in the greatest tension and uncertainty, she had walked about

the corridors. She had first tried to persuade herself that the people

were sure to exaggerate. When she reflected that, in the event of

Othomar's being wounded, the princes and the equerries would have

returned at once, she became more tranquil and waited patiently.

But the chamberlain, who had been to Vaza, returned in dismay: people

were very uneasy in the town, pressing round the doors of the

newspaper-offices to read the bulletins, which mentioned the attempt

briefly, with the provoking comment that further particulars were not

yet to hand. The duchess realized that by this time the bulletin had

also been telegraphed to Lipara; and she feared not only that Othomar

had met with harm, but that she herself would lose favour with the

empress....

When the duchess at last, after long watching from a window in the west

corridor, saw the princes and their suite come trotting, very small,

along a distant road, she could not restrain herself and went to meet

them in the courtyard. But she saw that Othomar was unhurt. The Duke of

Xara dismounted, smiled, gave her his hand; she kissed it, curtseying,

ardently; her tears fell down upon it. The chamberlain approached,

assured Othomar, in the name of all the duke's servants, of their

heartfelt gratitude that the Duke of Xara had been spared, by the grace

of God and the succour of St. Ladislas.

Ducardi had not been able to telegraph from anywhere before, but he now

sent in all haste to Vaza with a message for the emperor, mentioning at

the same time that the prince had calmly resumed the expedition

immediately after the attempt upon his life. Dinner took place amid a

babel of voices; the duchess was greatly excited, asked for the smallest

details and almost embraced Von Fest. The crown-prince drank to his

preserver and every one paid him tribute.

Afterwards Ducardi advised the crown-prince, in an aside, to retire

early to rest. The general spoke in a gentle voice; it seemed as though

the thought that he might have lost his crown-prince had made him fonder

of him. Herman too pressed Othomar to go to bed.

He himself had grown calm, but a vague feeling of lassitude had come

over all his being: he had even drunk Von Fest's health in a strangely

weary voice. He now took their advice, withdrew, undressed himself; his

soiled uniform, which he had changed before dinner, still hung over a

chair; he shuddered to think that he had worn it the whole afternoon:

"Those things!" he said to Andro, who was still quite confused and,

nervously weeping, was tidying up. "Burn them, or throw them away, throw

them away."

Othomar flung himself in his dressing-gown on a couch in the room

adjoining his bedroom. This was also an historical apartment, with

tapestry on the walls representing scenes from the history of Lipara:

the Emperor Berengar I., triumphantly riding into Jerusalem, with his

crusaders holding aloft their white banners; the Empress Xaveria, seated

on horseback in her golden armour before the walls of Altara, falling

backwards, struck dead by a Turkish arrow....

The prince lay staring at them. A deadly calm seemed to make him feel

nothing, care about nothing. In his own mind he reviewed the whole

historical period from Berengar to Xaveria. He knew the dates; the

scenes passed cloudily before his eyes as though tapestries were being

unrolled, kaleidoscopically, with the faded colours of old artwork. He

saw himself again, a small boy, in the Imperial, in an austere room,

diligently learning his lessons; he saw his masters, relieving one

another: languages, history, political economy, international law,

strategy; it had all heaped itself upon his young brain, piled itself

up, built itself up like a tower. By way of change, his military

education--drilling, riding, fencing--conducted by General Ducardi, who

praised him or grumbled at him, or growled at the sergeants who

instructed him. He had never been able to learn mathematics, had never

understood a word of algebra; in many subjects he had always remained

weak: natural philosophy and chemistry, for instance. For a time he had

taken great pleasure in the study of mineralogy and zoology and botany;

and afterwards he had shown some enthusiasm for astronomy. Then came the

university and his legal studies....

He remembered his little vanities as a child and as a boy, when in his

ninth year he had become a lieutenant in the throne-guards; when later

he had received the Garter from the Queen of England and the Black Eagle

from the German Emperor and the Golden Fleece from the Queen-regent of

Spain. With such minor vanity there had always been mingled a certain

dread of possible obligations which the Garter or the Eagle might imply:

obligations which hovered vaguely before his eyes, which he dared not

define and still less ask about of Ducardi, of his father. Gradually

these threatening obligations had become so heavy and now, now they were

the weights that bore upon his chest....

The weights.... But he did not stir, feeling strangely calm. Then he

thought of Von Fest, of the duchess.... Yesterday, her kiss.... He had

lain swooning on her shoulder and she had kissed him and long watched

him with passionate looks. And all those stories of the equerries....

Then it came as with a fierce wave foaming over his absolute

calmness....

Why had that man hated him, tried to murder him, tried to slay him like

a beast?... Pride welled up in him, pride and despair. The man had

touched him, soiled him with his breath, him, the crown-prince, the Duke

of Xara! He gnashed his teeth with rage. That was a thing which Berengar

I. would never have suffered! Off with his head! Off with his head!...

Oh, that populace which did not know, which did not feel, which pressed

up against him, seething and foaming against the throne, which terrified

his mother, however haughtily she might look beyond it into the

distance, with her imperial composure!...

How he hated it, hated it, with all the hatred of his house for those

who were now free and were yet once its slaves! How he would have them

shot down, have them shot down when he came into power!...

He looked at Xaveria: she herself was shot down, the haughty amazon;

backwards she fell, wounded by the arrow of a Turkish soldier. And he,

that morning, if Von Fest had not....

He threw himself back wildly, buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

No, no, oh no! He would not shoot them down, not kill them, not hate

them! He was not like that: he might be like that for a moment, but he

was not like that! He was fond of his people; he was so grateful when

they rejoiced, when he was able to help them. Surely he would never have

them shot on! He was only growing excited now. What was there in his

soul for all of them, for those millions, of whom he had perhaps seen

only a few thousands and knew only a few hundreds, but one great love,

which threw out arms to them in every direction, to embrace them? Had he

not felt this in that black night on the Therezia Square? Were hatred

and violence his? No, oh no! He was soft, perhaps too soft, too

irresolute, but he would grow older, he would grow stronger; he would

wish to and he would make all of them happy. Oh, if they only cared for

him, if they only loved him with their great mass of surging, black,

frothing humanity, a sable Milky Way of swarming souls, each soul a

spark, like his own; oh, if they only loved him! But they must not hate

him, not look at him with those bloodshot eyes of hatred, not aim at his

throat with those coarse, hairy fingers, not try to murder him, O God,

not try to slay him like a bullock, with a common knife, him, their

future sovereign!...

And he felt that they did not belong to him and did not know him and did

not understand him and did not love him, all of them, and that they

hated him merely out of instinct, because he was born upon the throne!

And his despair because of all this spanned out, immense, a desert of

black night, which he felt eternities wide around him; and he sobbed,

sobbed, like an inconsolable child, because this was as it was and would

become more desperate with each day that brought him nearer to his

future as emperor and to their future: the mournful day which would rise

upon the destruction of the old world....

Then there came a knock at a little door; and the door was softly

opened....

"Who's there?" he asked, startled, feeling the breach of etiquette, not

understanding why Andro had not come through the anteroom to announce

whoever it might be.

"If your highness permits me...."

He recognized the duchess' soft voice, rose, went to the door:

"Come in, duchess...."

She entered, hesitatingly; she had thrown a long cloak over her bare

shoulders to go through the chilly passages of the castle....

"Forgive me, highness, if I intrude ... if I disturb you...."

He smiled, said no, apologized for his costume, feeling surprised and

pleased....

She saw that his eyes were swimming with moisture:

"I am indiscreet," she said, "but I couldn't help it; I felt I must find

out how you were, highness.... Perhaps I wished to surprise you as well:

I don't quite know. Something impelled me: I could not help coming to

you. You are my guest and my crown-prince; I longed to see for myself

how you were.... Your highness bore up well at dinner, but I felt...."

Her voice flowed on, soft and monotonous, as though with drops of

balsam. He asked her to sit down; she did so; he sat down by her side;

the dark cloak slipped off and she was magnificent, with her white neck,

siren-like in her opalescent, pale-green watered silk. He noticed that

she had laid aside the jewels which she had worn at dinner.

"I wanted to come to you quietly, through that door," she resumed, "in

order to tell you once more, to tell you alone, how unspeakably thankful

I am that your highness' life has been preserved...."

Her voice trembled; her ebony glances grew moist; the light of the great

candles in the silver candelabra shimmered over the silk of her dress,

played with soft light and slumbering shadow in the modelling of her

face, in the curve of her bosom.

He pressed her hand; she retained his:

"Was your highness crying when I came in?" she asked.

His tears were still flowing, a last sob heaved through his body.

"Why?" she asked again. "Or am I indiscreet?..."

He looked at her; at this moment he could have told her everything. And,

though he contained himself, yet he gave her the essence of his grief:

"I was sad," he said, "because they seem to hate me. Nothing makes me so

sad as their hatred."

She looked at him long, felt his sorrow, understood him with her

feminine tact, with her courtier-like swiftness of comprehension, which

had ripened in the immediate contact of her sovereigns. She understood

him: he was the crown-prince, he must suffer his special princely

suffering; he must drink an imperial cup of bitterness to the dregs. She

remembered that she herself had suffered, so often and so violently, for

love, passionate woman that she was; she understood that his suffering

was different from hers, but doubtless more terrible, as it seized him

already at so young an age and as it depended not upon his own single

soul, but upon the millions of souls of his empire. She too had suffered

because she had not been loved; he also suffered like that. And so in

one instant she understood him quite entirely, with all her strange

woman's heart.

A thrill of compassion welled up in her breast as a yet unknown delight

and, like a fervent, gentle oracle, she uttered the words:

"They do not all hate you...."

He recognized her passionate glances of the day before. He remembered

her kiss. He looked at her long, still hesitating a little in the

presence of the unknown. Then he extended his arms and, with a dull cry

of despair, hoarse with hunger for consolation, he called to her in his

helplessness:

"Oh, Alexa!..."

She first smiled, with radiant eyes, then flung herself bodily into his

young arms, crushing him against her bare breast. She felt like a maid

and a mother in one. But, when he clung to her in a wild passion of

despair, she felt herself to be nothing but a lover. She knew that he

would be her last love. The knowledge made her proudly sad and

diabolically happy. Her kisses clattered upon his eyes like hail....

And in their love, that night, they mingled the wormwood of what they

both were suffering, each seeking consolation for life's sorrows in the

other....

9

"To HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF XARA,

"LYCILIA.

"THE IMPERIAL,

"LIPARA,

"--_April_, 18--.

"MY DEAR BROTHER,

"I want to tell you before you read it in those tedious papers that our

respected father and emperor this morning, on my tenth birthday, dubbed

me a knight of St. Ladislas in the knights' hall of the palace. You can

understand how proud I feel. I shall not tell you about the ceremony,

because you will remember that yourself. I was very much impressed as I

walked up to our father between all those tall knights in their blue

mantles and knelt before his throne. I wore my new uniform of a

lieutenant in the guards. The king-at-arms, the Marquis of Ezzera, held

up the rule of the order on a cushion, on which I took the oath. I must

have looked rather small with my little mantle: the cross of St.

Ladislas was just as big on it, however, as on those of all the others.

I felt that they were all looking over my head; and that is not a

pleasant feeling when you are the hero of the day. But of course I am

the youngest of the knights, so there is no harm in my being a little

shorter. The sword our father gave me is also a little smaller than that

of the other knights, but the hilt is rather pretty and blazes with

precious stones. Still, I think I prefer the chasing on the scabbard of

yours, but when I am eighteen--so in eight years from now!--I am to have

another sword and of course another mantle too.

"Mamma was terribly alarmed and nervous when she heard of that man who

attacked you and she wanted to have you recalled at once, because it did

not seem safe where you are; and she simply could not understand that

this could not be done. But safe: who is safe nowadays? One's not safe

in war either and not even here in the Imperial. One shouldn't think so

much of all that safety, that's what I say; but of course mamma is a

woman and therefore she thinks differently from what we do. The riots

and the martial law also upset her, but I think it rather jolly:

everything's military now, you know. That Von Fest is a fine fellow. I

should like to shake hands with him and to thank him myself; but, as I

can't, I beg you _particularly_ to do so for me and _on no account_ to

forget it. You have heard, no doubt, through General Ducardi, that papa

is going to make Von Fest a commander of the Imperial Orb. What a pity

that we can't create him a knight of St. Ladislas, but for that of

course he would have to be a Liparian and not a Gothlander.

"Now, dear brother, I must finish, because Colonel Fasti is expecting me

for my fencing-lesson. Give my _very kindest_ regards to Herman and

General Ducardi and remember me to the others; and accept for yourself

the fond embrace of your affectionate brother,

"BERENGAR,

"Marquis of Thracyna

"(Knight of St. Ladislas)."