The Countess left poor Otto with a caress and buffet simultaneously
administered. The welcome word about his wife and the virtuous ending of
his interview should doubtless have delighted him. But for all that, as
he shouldered the bag of money and set forward to rejoin his groom, he
was conscious of many aching sensibilities. To have gone wrong and to
have been set right makes but a double trial for man’s vanity. The
discovery of his own weakness and possible unfaith had staggered him to
the heart; and to hear, in the same hour, of his wife’s fidelity from one
who loved her not, increased the bitterness of the surprise.
He was about half-way between the fountain and the Flying Mercury before
his thoughts began to be clear; and he was surprised to find them
resentful. He paused in a kind of temper, and struck with his hand a
little shrub. Thence there arose instantly a cloud of awakened sparrows,
which as instantly dispersed and disappeared into the thicket. He looked
at them stupidly, and when they were gone continued staring at the stars.
‘I am angry. By what right? By none!’ he thought; but he was still
angry. He cursed Madame von Rosen and instantly repented. Heavy was the
money on his shoulders.
When he reached the fountain, he did, out of ill-humour and parade, an
unpardonable act. He gave the money bodily to the dishonest groom.
‘Keep this for me,’ he said, ‘until I call for it to-morrow. It is a
great sum, and by that you will judge that I have not condemned you.’
And he strode away ruffling, as if he had done something generous. It
was a desperate stroke to re-enter at the point of the bayonet into his
self-esteem; and, like all such, it was fruitless in the end. He got to
bed with the devil, it appeared: kicked and tumbled till the grey of the
morning; and then fell inopportunely into a leaden slumber, and awoke to
find it ten. To miss the appointment with old Killian after all, had
been too tragic a miscarriage: and he hurried with all his might, found
the groom (for a wonder) faithful to his trust, and arrived only a few
minutes before noon in the guest-chamber of the Morning Star. Killian
was there in his Sunday’s best and looking very gaunt and rigid; a lawyer
from Brandenau stood sentinel over his outspread papers; and the groom
and the landlord of the inn were called to serve as witnesses. The
obvious deference of that great man, the innkeeper, plainly affected the
old farmer with surprise; but it was not until Otto had taken the pen and
signed that the truth flashed upon him fully. Then, indeed, he was
beside himself.
‘His Highness!’ he cried, ‘His Highness!’ and repeated the exclamation
till his mind had grappled fairly with the facts. Then he turned to the
witnesses. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you dwell in a country highly favoured
by God; for of all generous gentlemen, I will say it on my conscience,
this one is the king. I am an old man, and I have seen good and bad, and
the year of the great famine; but a more excellent gentleman, no, never.’
‘We know that,’ cried the landlord, ‘we know that well in Grünewald. If
we saw more of his Highness we should be the better pleased.’
‘It is the kindest Prince,’ began the groom, and suddenly closed his
mouth upon a sob, so that every one turned to gaze upon his emotion—Otto
not last; Otto struck with remorse, to see the man so grateful.
Then it was the lawyer’s turn to pay a compliment. ‘I do not know what
Providence may hold in store,’ he said, ‘but this day should be a bright
one in the annals of your reign. The shouts of armies could not be more
eloquent than the emotion on these honest faces.’ And the Brandenau
lawyer bowed, skipped, stepped back, and took snuff, with the air of a
man who has found and seized an opportunity.
‘Well, young gentleman,’ said Killian, ‘if you will pardon me the
plainness of calling you a gentleman, many a good day’s work you have
done, I doubt not, but never a better, or one that will be better
blessed; and whatever, sir, may be your happiness and triumph in that
high sphere to which you have been called, it will be none the worse,
sir, for an old man’s blessing!’
The scene had almost assumed the proportions of an ovation; and when the
Prince escaped he had but one thought: to go wherever he was most sure of
praise. His conduct at the board of council occurred to him as a fair
chapter; and this evoked the memory of Gotthold. To Gotthold he would
go.
Gotthold was in the library as usual, and laid down his pen, a little
angrily, on Otto’s entrance. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘here you are.’
‘Well,’ returned Otto, ‘we made a revolution, I believe.’
‘It is what I fear,’ returned the Doctor.
‘How?’ said Otto. ‘Fear? Fear is the burnt child. I have learned my
strength and the weakness of the others; and I now mean to govern.’
Gotthold said nothing, but he looked down and smoothed his chin.
‘You disapprove?’ cried Otto. ‘You are a weather-cock.’
‘On the contrary,’ replied the Doctor. ‘My observation has confirmed my
fears. It will not do, Otto, not do.’
‘What will not do?’ demanded the Prince, with a sickening stab of pain.
‘None of it,’ answered Gotthold. ‘You are unfitted for a life of action;
you lack the stamina, the habit, the restraint, the patience. Your wife
is greatly better, vastly better; and though she is in bad hands,
displays a very different aptitude. She is a woman of affairs; you
are—dear boy, you are yourself. I bid you back to your amusements; like
a smiling dominie, I give you holidays for life. Yes,’ he continued,
‘there is a day appointed for all when they shall turn again upon their
own philosophy. I had grown to disbelieve impartially in all; and if in
the atlas of the sciences there were two charts I disbelieved in more
than all the rest, they were politics and morals. I had a sneaking
kindness for your vices; as they were negative, they flattered my
philosophy; and I called them almost virtues. Well, Otto, I was wrong; I
have forsworn my sceptical philosophy; and I perceive your faults to be
unpardonable. You are unfit to be a Prince, unfit to be a husband. And
I give you my word, I would rather see a man capably doing evil than
blundering about good.’
Otto was still silent, in extreme dudgeon.
Presently the Doctor resumed: ‘I will take the smaller matter first: your
conduct to your wife. You went, I hear, and had an explanation. That
may have been right or wrong; I know not; at least, you had stirred her
temper. At the council she insults you; well, you insult her back—a man
to a woman, a husband to his wife, in public! Next upon the back of
this, you propose—the story runs like wildfire—to recall the power of
signature. Can she ever forgive that? a woman—a young woman—ambitious,
conscious of talents beyond yours? Never, Otto. And to sum all, at such
a crisis in your married life, you get into a window corner with that
ogling dame von Rosen. I do not dream that there was any harm; but I do
say it was an idle disrespect to your wife. Why, man, the woman is not
decent.’
‘Gotthold,’ said Otto, ‘I will hear no evil of the Countess.’
‘You will certainly hear no good of her,’ returned Gotthold; ‘and if you
wish your wife to be the pink of nicety, you should clear your court of
demi-reputations.’
‘The commonplace injustice of a by-word,’ Otto cried. ‘The partiality of
sex. She is a demirep; what then is Gondremark? Were she a man—’
‘It would be all one,’ retorted Gotthold roughly. ‘When I see a man,
come to years of wisdom, who speaks in double-meanings and is the
braggart of his vices, I spit on the other side. “You, my friend,” say
I, “are not even a gentleman.” Well, she’s not even a lady.’
‘She is the best friend I have, and I choose that she shall be
respected,’ Otto said.
‘If she is your friend, so much the worse,’ replied the Doctor. ‘It will
not stop there.’
‘Ah!’ cried Otto, ‘there is the charity of virtue! All evil in the
spotted fruit. But I can tell you, sir, that you do Madame von Rosen
prodigal injustice.’
‘You can tell me!’ said the Doctor shrewdly. ‘Have you, tried? have you
been riding the marches?’
The blood came into Otto’s face.
‘Ah!’ cried Gotthold, ‘look at your wife and blush! There’s a wife for a
man to marry and then lose! She’s a carnation, Otto. The soul is in her
eyes.’
‘You have changed your note for Seraphina, I perceive,’ said Otto.
‘Changed it!’ cried the Doctor, with a flush. ‘Why, when was it
different? But I own I admired her at the council. When she sat there
silent, tapping with her foot, I admired her as I might a hurricane.
Were I one of those who venture upon matrimony, there had been the prize
to tempt me! She invites, as Mexico invited Cortez; the enterprise is
hard, the natives are unfriendly—I believe them cruel too—but the
metropolis is paved with gold and the breeze blows out of paradise. Yes,
I could desire to be that conqueror. But to philander with von Rosen!
never! Senses? I discard them; what are they?—pruritus! Curiosity?
Reach me my Anatomy!’
‘To whom do you address yourself?’ cried Otto. ‘Surely you, of all men,
know that I love my wife!’
‘O, love!’ cried Gotthold; ‘love is a great word; it is in all the
dictionaries. If you had loved, she would have paid you back. What does
she ask? A little ardour!’
‘It is hard to love for two,’ replied the Prince.
‘Hard? Why, there’s the touchstone! O, I know my poets!’ cried the
Doctor. ‘We are but dust and fire, too and to endure life’s scorching;
and love, like the shadow of a great rock, should lend shelter and
refreshment, not to the lover only, but to his mistress and to the
children that reward them; and their very friends should seek repose in
the fringes of that peace. Love is not love that cannot build a home.
And you call it love to grudge and quarrel and pick faults? You call it
love to thwart her to her face, and bandy insults? Love!’
‘Gotthold, you are unjust. I was then fighting for my country,’ said the
Prince.
‘Ay, and there’s the worst of all,’ returned the Doctor. ‘You could not
even see that you were wrong; that being where they were, retreat was
ruin.’
Why, you supported me!’ cried Otto.
‘I did. I was a fool like you,’ replied Gotthold. ‘But now my eyes are
open. If you go on as you have started, disgrace this fellow Gondremark,
and publish the scandal of your divided house, there will befall a most
abominable thing in Grünewald. A revolution, friend—a revolution.’
‘You speak strangely for a red,’ said Otto.
‘A red republican, but not a revolutionary,’ returned the Doctor. ‘An
ugly thing is a Grünewalder drunk! One man alone can save the country
from this pass, and that is the double-dealer Gondremark, with whom I
conjure you to make peace. It will not be you; it never can be you:—you,
who can do nothing, as your wife said, but trade upon your station—you,
who spent the hours in begging money! And in God’s name, what for? Why
money? What mystery of idiocy was this?’
‘It was to no ill end. It was to buy a farm,’ quoth Otto sulkily.
‘To buy a farm!’ cried Gotthold. ‘Buy a farm!’
‘Well, what then?’ returned Otto. ‘I have bought it, if you come to
that.’
Gotthold fairly bounded on his seat. ‘And how that?’ he cried.
‘How?’ repeated Otto, startled.
‘Ay, verily, how!’ returned the Doctor. ‘How came you by the money?’
The Prince’s countenance darkened. ‘That is my affair,’ said he.
‘You see you are ashamed,’ retorted Gotthold. ‘And so you bought a farm
in the hour of our country’s need—doubtless to be ready for the
abdication; and I put it that you stole the funds. There are not three
ways of getting money: there are but two: to earn and steal. And now,
when you have combined Charles the Fifth and Long-fingered Tom, you come
to me to fortify your vanity! But I will clear my mind upon this matter:
until I know the right and wrong of the transaction, I put my hand behind
my back. A man may be the pitifullest prince; he must be a spotless
gentleman.’
The Prince had gotten to his feet, as pale as paper. Gotthold,’ he said,
‘you drive me beyond bounds. Beware, sir, beware!’
‘Do you threaten me, friend Otto?’ asked the Doctor grimly. ‘That would
be a strange conclusion.’
‘When have you ever known me use my power in any private animosity?’
cried Otto. ‘To any private man your words were an unpardonable insult,
but at me you shoot in full security, and I must turn aside to compliment
you on your plainness. I must do more than pardon, I must admire,
because you have faced this—this formidable monarch, like a Nathan before
David. You have uprooted an old kindness, sir, with an unsparing hand.
You leave me very bare. My last bond is broken; and though I take Heaven
to witness that I sought to do the right, I have this reward: to find
myself alone. You say I am no gentleman; yet the sneers have been upon
your side; and though I can very well perceive where you have lodged your
sympathies, I will forbear the taunt.’
‘Otto, are you insane?’ cried Gotthold, leaping up. ‘Because I ask you
how you came by certain moneys, and because you refuse—’
‘Herr von Hohenstockwitz, I have ceased to invite your aid in my
affairs,’ said Otto. ‘I have heard all that I desire, and you have
sufficiently trampled on my vanity. It may be that I cannot govern, it
may be that I cannot love—you tell me so with every mark of honesty; but
God has granted me one virtue, and I can still forgive. I forgive you;
even in this hour of passion, I can perceive my faults and your excuses;
and if I desire that in future I may be spared your conversation, it is
not, sir, from resentment—not resentment—but, by Heaven, because no man
on earth could endure to be so rated. You have the satisfaction to see
your sovereign weep; and that person whom you have so often taunted with
his happiness reduced to the last pitch of solitude and misery. No,—I
will hear nothing; I claim the last word, sir, as your Prince; and that
last word shall be—forgiveness.’
And with that Otto was gone from the apartment, and Doctor Gotthold was
left alone with the most conflicting sentiments of sorrow, remorse, and
merriment; walking to and fro before his table, and asking himself, with
hands uplifted, which of the pair of them was most to blame for this
unhappy rupture. Presently, he took from a cupboard a bottle of Rhine
wine and a goblet of the deep Bohemian ruby. The first glass a little
warmed and comforted his bosom; with the second he began to look down
upon these troubles from a sunny mountain; yet a while, and filled with
this false comfort and contemplating life throughout a golden medium, he
owned to himself, with a flush, a smile, and a half-pleasurable sigh,
that he had been somewhat over plain in dealing with his cousin. ‘He
said the truth, too,’ added the penitent librarian, ‘for in my monkish
fashion I adore the Princess.’ And then, with a still deepening flush
and a certain stealth, although he sat all alone in that great gallery,
he toasted Seraphina to the dregs.