THE TEMPTER.
As Mademoiselle von Marwitz left the room, Pollnitz took a sealed
note from his pocket and handed it hastily to the princess. She
concealed it in the pocket of her dress, and continued to gaze
indifferently upon a painting of Watteau, which hung upon the wall.
"Not one word! Still! Not one word!" whispered Pollnitz. "You are
resolved to drive my young friend to despair. You will not grant him
one gracious word?"
The princess turned away her blushing face, drew a note from her
bosom, and, without a glance or word in reply, she handed it to the
master of ceremonies, ashamed and confused, as a young girl always
is, when she enters upon her first love romance, or commits her
first imprudence.
Pollnitz kissed her hand with a lover's rapture. "He will be the
most blessed of mortals," said he, "and yet this is so small a
favor! It lies in the power of your royal highness to grant him
heavenly felicity. You can fulfil one wish which his trembling lips
have never dared to speak; which only God and the eyes of one
faithful friend have seen written in his heart."
"What is this wish?" said the princess, in so low and trembling a
whisper, that Pollnitz rather guessed than heard her words.
"I believe that he would pay with his life for the happiness of
sitting one hour at your feet and gazing upon you."
"Well, you have prepared for him this opportunity; you have so
adroitly arranged your plans, that I cannot avoid meeting him."
"Ah, princess, how despondent would he be, if he could hear these
cold and cruel words! I must comfort him by this appearance of favor
if I cannot obtain for him a real happiness. Your royal highness is
very cold, very stern toward my poor friend. My God! he asks only of
your grace, that which the humblest of your brother's subjects dare
demand of him--an audience--that is all."
Amelia fixed her burning eyes upon Pollnitz. "Apage, Satanas!" she
whispered, with a weary smile.
"You do me too much honor," said Pollnitz. "Unhappily I am not the
devil, who is, without doubt, next to God, the most powerful ruler
of this earth. I am convinced that three-fourths of our race belong
to him. I am, alas! but a poor, weak mortal, and my words have not
the power to move the heart of your highness to pity."
"My God! Pollnitz, why all this eloquence and intercession?" cried
Amelia. "Do I not allow him to write to me all that he thinks and
feels? Am I not traitress enough to read all his letters, and pardon
him for his love? What more can he dare hope for? Is it not enough
that he loves a princess, and tells her so? Not enough--"
She ceased suddenly; her eyes, which shrank from meeting the bold,
reproachful, and ironical glance of the baron, had wandered
restlessly about the room and fell now upon the picture of Watteau;
upon the loving, happy pair, who were tenderly embracing under the
oaks in the centre of that enchanting landscape. This group, upon
which the eye of the princess accidentally rested, was an eloquent
and decisive answer to her question--an answer made to the eyes, if
not the ears of Amelia--and her heart trembled.
Pollnitz had followed her glances, and understood her blushes and
her confusion. He stepped to the picture and pointed to the tender
lovers.
"Gracious princess, demand of these blessed ones, if a man who loves
passionately has nothing more to implore of his mistress than the
permission to write her letters?"
Amelia trembled. She fixed her eyes with an expression of absolute
terror upon Pollnitz, who with his fox smile and immovable composure
gazed steadily in her face. He had no pity for her girlish
confusion, for her modest and maidenly alarm. With gay, mocking, and
frivolous jests, he resolved to overcome her fears. He painted in
glowing colors the anguish and despair of her young lover; he
assured her that she could grant him a meeting in her rooms without
danger from curious eyes or ears. Did not the room of the princess
open upon this little dark corridor, in which no guard was ever
placed, and from which a small, neglected stairway led to the lower
stage of the castle? This stairway opened into an unoccupied room,
the low windows of which looked out upon the garden of Monbijou.
Nothing, then, was necessary but to withdraw the bar from these
windows during the day; they could then be noiselessly opened by
night, and the room of the princess safely reached.
The princess was silent. By no look or smile, no contraction of the
brow or expression of displeasure, did she show her emotion, but she
listened to these vile and dangerous words; she let the poison of
the tempter enter her heart; she had neither the strength nor will
to reject his counsel, or banish him from her presence; she had only
the power to be silent, and to conceal from Pollnitz that her better
self was overcome.
"I shall soon reach the goal," said Pollnitz, clapping his hands
merrily after leaving the princess. "Yes, yes! the heart of the
little Princess Amelia is subdued, and her love is like a ripe
fruit-ready to be plucked by the first eager hand. And this, my
proud and cruel King Frederick, will be my revenge. I will return
shame for shame. If the good people in the streets rejoice to hear
the humiliation and shame put upon the Baron von Pollnitz, cried
aloud at the corners, I think they will enjoy no less the scandal
about the little Princess Amelia. This will not, to be sure, be
trumpeted through the streets; but the voice of Slander is powerful,
and her lightest whispers are eagerly received."
Pollnitz gave himself up for a while to these wicked and cruel
thoughts, and he looked like a demon rejoicing in the anguish of his
victims. He soon smoothed his brow, however, and assumed his
accustomed gay and unembarrassed manner.
"But before I revenge myself, I must be paid," said he, with an
internal chuckle. "I shall be the chosen confidant in this
adventure, and my name is not Pollnitz if I do not realize a large
profit. Oh, King Frederick, King Frederick! I think the little
Amelia will pay but small attention to your command and your menace.
She will lend the poor Pollnitz gold; yes, gold, much gold! and I--I
will pay her by my silence."
Giving himself up to these happy thoughts, the master of ceremonies
sought the young lieutenant, in order to hand him the letter of the
princess.
"The fortress is ready to surrender," cried he; "advance and storm
it, and you will enter the open door of the heart as conqueror. I
have prepared the way for you to see the princess every day: make
use of your opportunities like a brave, handsome, young, and loving
cavalier. I predict you will soon be a general, or a prince, or
something great and envied."
"A general, a prince, or a high traitor, who must lay his head upon
the block and expiate his guilt with his life," said Trench
thoughtfully. "Let it be so. In order to become this high traitor, I
must first be the happiest, the most enviable of men. I shall not
think that too dearly paid for by my heart's blood. Oh, Amelia,
Amelia! I love thee boundlessly; thou art my happiness, my
salvation, my hope; thou--"
"Enough, enough!" said Pollnitz, laughing and placing his hands upon
his ears. "These are well-known, well-used, and much-abused phrases,
which have been repeated in all languages since the time of Adam,
and which after all are only lovely and fantastic lies. Act, my
young friend, but say nothing; you know that walls have ears. The
table upon which you write your letters, and the portfolio in which
you place the letters of the princess, to be guarded to all
eternity, both have prying eyes. Prudence, prudence! burn the
letters of the princess, and write your own with sympathetic ink or
in cipher, so that no man can read them, and none but God and the
devil may know your dangerous secret."
Trenck did not hear one word of this; he was too happy, too
impassioned, too young, to listen to the words of warning and
caution of the old roue. He read again and again, and with ever-
increasing rapture, the letter of the princess; he pressed it to his
throbbing heart and glowing lips, and fixed his loving eyes upon
those characters which her hand had written and her heart had
dictated.
Pollnitz looked at him with a subdued smile, and enjoyed his
raptures, even as the fox enjoys the graceful flappings of the
wings, the gentle movements of the dove, when he knows that she
cannot escape him, and grants her a few moments of happiness before
he springs upon and strangles her. "I wager that you know that
letter by heart," said he, as he slowly lighted a match in order to
kindle his cigar; "am I not right? do you not know it by heart?"
"Every word is written in letters of flame upon my heart."
With a sudden movement, the baron snatched the paper from the young
man and held it in the flames,
"Stop! stop!" cried Frederick von Trenck, and he tried to tear the
letter from him.
Pollnitz kept him off with one arm and waved the burning paper over
his head.
"My God! what have you done?" cried the young man.
"I have made a sacrifice to the god of silence," said he solemnly;
"I have burnt this paper lest it might be used to light the scaffold
upon which you may one day burn as a high traitor. Thank me, young
man. I have perhaps saved you from discovery and from death."