The morning of the important day at length arrived, and all Klosterheim
was filled with expectation. Even those who were not amongst the
invited shared in the anxiety; for a great scene was looked for, and
perhaps some tragical explosion. The undertaking of Adorni was known;
it had been published abroad that he was solemnly pledged to effect the
arrest of The Masque; and by many it was believed that he would so far
succeed, at the least, as to bring on a public collision with that
extraordinary personage. As to the issue most people were doubtful, The
Masque having hitherto so uniformly defeated the best-laid schemes for
his apprehension. But it was hardly questioned that the public
challenge offered to him by Adorni would succeed in bringing him before
the public eye. This challenge had taken the shape of a public notice,
posted up in the places where The Masque had usually affixed his own;
and it was to the following effect: "That the noble strangers now in
Klosterheim, and others invited to the Landgrave's _fête_, who might
otherwise feel anxiety in presenting themselves at the _schloss_, from
an apprehension of meeting with the criminal disturber of the public
peace, known by the appellation of The Masque, were requested by
authority to lay aside all apprehensions of that nature, as the most
energetic measures had been adopted to prevent or chastise upon the
spot any such insufferable intrusion; and for The Masque himself, if he
presumed to disturb the company by his presence, he would be seized
where he stood, and, without further inquiry, committed to the provost-
marshal for instant execution;--on which account, all persons were
warned carefully to forbear from intrusions of simple curiosity, since
in the hurry of the moment it might be difficult to make the requisite
distinctions."
It was anticipated that this insulting notice would not long go without
an answer from The Masque. Accordingly, on the following morning, a
placard, equally conspicuous, was posted up in the same public places,
side by side with that to which it replied. It was couched in the
following terms: "That he who ruled by night in Klosterheim could not
suppose himself to be excluded from a nocturnal _fete_ given by
any person in that city. That he must be allowed to believe himself
invited by the prince, and would certainly have the honor to accept his
highness' obliging summons. With regard to the low personalities
addressed to himself, that he could not descend to notice anything of
that nature, coming from a man so abject as Adorni, until he should
first have cleared himself from the imputation of having been a tailor
in Venice at the time of the Spanish conspiracy in 1618, and banished
from that city, not for any suspicions that could have settled upon him
and his eight journeymen as making up one conspirator, but on account
of some professional tricks in making a doublet for the Doge. For the
rest, he repeated that he would not fail to meet the Landgrave and his
honorable company."
All Klosterheim laughed at this public mortification offered to
Adorni's pride; for that minister had incurred the public dislike as a
foreigner, and their hatred on the score of private character. Adorni
himself foamed at the mouth with rage, impotent for the present, but
which he prepared to give deadly effect to at the proper time. But,
whilst it laughed, Klosterheim also trembled. Some persons, indeed,
were of opinion that the answer of The Masque was a mere sportive
effusion of malice or pleasantry from the students, who had suffered so
much by his annoyances. But the majority, amongst whom was Adorni
himself, thought otherwise. Apart even from the reply, or the insult
which had provoked it, the general impression was, that The Masque
would not have failed in attending a festival, which, by the very
costume which it imposed, offered so favorable a cloak to his own
mysterious purposes. In this persuasion, Adorni took all the
precautions which personal vengeance and Venetian subtlety could
suggest, for availing himself of the single opportunity that would,
perhaps, ever be allowed him for entrapping this public enemy, who had
now become a private one to himself.
These various incidents had furnished abundant matter for conversation
in Klosterheim, and had carried the public expectation to the highest
pitch of anxiety, some time before the great evening arrived. Leisure
had been allowed for fear, and every possible anticipation of the
wildest character, to unfold themselves. Hope, even, amongst many, was
a predominant sensation. Ladies were preparing for hysterics.
Cavaliers, besides the swords which they wore as regular articles of
dress, were providing themselves with stilettoes against any sudden
rencontre hand to hand, or any unexpected surprise. Armorers and
furbishers of weapons were as much in request as the more appropriate
artists who minister to such festal occasions. These again were
summoned to give their professional aid and attendance to an extent so
much out of proportion to their numbers and their natural power of
exertion, that they were harassed beyond all physical capacity of
endurance, and found their ingenuity more heavily taxed to find
personal substitutes amongst the trades most closely connected with
their own, than in any of the contrivances which more properly fell
within the business of their own art. Tailors, horse-milliners,
shoemakers, friseurs, drapers, mercers, tradesmen of every description,
and servants of every class and denomination, were summoned to a
sleepless activity--each in his several vocation, or in some which he
undertook by proxy. Artificers who had escaped on political motives
from Nuremburg and other imperial cities, or from the sack of
Magdeburg, now showed their ingenuity, and their readiness to earn the
bread of industry; and if Klosterheim resembled a hive in the close-
packed condition of its inhabitants, it was now seen that the
resemblance held good hardly less in the industry which, upon a
sufficient excitement, it was able to develop. But, in the midst of all
this stir, din, and unprecedented activity, whatever occupation each
man found for his thoughts or for his hands in his separate
employments, all hearts were mastered by one domineering interest--the
approaching collision of the Landgrave, before his assembled court,
with the mysterious agent who had so long troubled his repose.