The procession has brought stillness to the square, but a murmur now approaches as from afar.... The crowd seems to surge as though in one wave, nobody is now kneeling; the very procession is broken up and confused. Through the throng rushes the report: the dyke has given way!...
They do not yet believe it; but suddenly from above the fort of St. Ladislas, which spreads its ramparts about the castle, a shot thunders out and vibrates over the black city and shakes through the black sky as though its rebound were breaking against the lowering clouds. A second shot thunders after it, as with giant cymbals of catastrophe, a third ... the whole town knows that the Zanthos has broken the dyke.
The whole square is in confused motion, like a swarm of ants; troops of tardy fugitives still come thronging in, poor ones now and indigent, who had not been able to fly earlier, who had been still hoping; through the crush Prince Dutri, panting, cursing, on horseback, terror in his eyes, strives to reach the statue; the distant murmur as of a sea comes nearer and nearer. Men scatter along the streets, on foot or in boats; the disordered procession, with the glitter of its reliquary, seeming to reel on the billows of a human sea, scatters towards the church.
"Is not even the square safe?" asks Othomar.
He can hardly speak, his chest seems cramped as it were with iron, his eyes fill with tears, an immense despair of impotence and pity suffuses his soul.
The mayor shakes his head:
"The square lies lower than the suburbs, highness; you cannot remain here. For God's sake go back to the Episcopal in a boat!..."
But the princes insist on remaining, though the murmur grows louder and louder.
"Go into the church in that case, highnesses: that is the only safe place left," the mayor beseeches. "I beg you, for God's sake!"
The square is already swept clean, the torch-bearers lead the princes to the steps of the church; the Zanthos comes billowing on, like a soft thunder skimming the ground.
Inside the church the organ sounds; they sing, they pray all through the night. And the whole night long everything outside remains chaotically black, gently murmuring....
When the first dawn pales over the sky, which begins in the distance to assume tints of rose and grey, faint opal and mother-of-pearl, Othomar and Herman and the equerries emerge on the steps of the church.
The square stands under water; the houses rise out of the water; the statue of Othomar III. waves its bronze arm and sword over a lake that ripples in the morning breeze.
From the Therezia Square to the Cathedral Square everything lies under water.
"TO HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE EMPRESS OF LIPARIA
"THE EPISCOPAL,"ALTARA,"—March, 18—.
"MY ADORED MOTHER,
"Your letter reproaches me with not writing to you two days ago, without delay; forgive me, for my thoughts have so constantly been full of you. But I felt so tired yesterday, after a busy day, and I lacked the strength to write to you in the evening. Let me tell you now of my experiences.
"You describe to me the terrible impression produced at Lipara by the telegram from here about the breach in the Therezia Dyke and how none slept at the Imperial. We too were up all night, in St. Therezia's Church. No such fearful inundation has been remembered for fifty years; at the time of that which my father remembers in his childhood, the Therezia Square was not flooded and the water only came as far, they say, as the great iron-factory.
"How can I describe to you what I felt that night, while we were hoping and waiting, hoping in turn that God and His Holy Mother would ward off this disaster from us and waiting for the catastrophe to burst forth! We stood on the pedestal of the equestrian statue, unable to do anything more. Oh, that impotence about me, that impotence within me! I kept on asking myself what I was there for, if I could do nothing to help my people. Never before, dearest Mother, have I felt this feeling of impotence, of inability to counteract the inevitable, so possess my soul, until it was wholly filled with despair; but neither have I ever so thoroughly realized that everything in life has its two sides, that the greatest disaster has not only its black shadow but also its bright side, for never, never have I felt so strongly and utterly, through my despair, the love for our people, a thing that I did not yet know could exist in our hearts as a truth, as I then felt it quivering all through me; and this love gave me an immense melancholy at the thought that all of them, the millions of souls of our empire, will never know, or, if they did know, believe that I loved them so, loved them as though my own blood ran in their veins. Nor do I wish to deceive myself and I well know that I should never have this feeling at Lipara, but I have it here, in our ancient city, which gives us all her sympathy. I feel here that I myself am more of a Slav, like our Altarians, than a Latin, like our southerners in Lipara and Thracyna; I feel here that I am of their blood, a thing that I do not feel yonder.
"No doubt much has been said and written in the papers about the want of tact of the Marquis of Dazzara, with his foolish guard-of-honour at the station at our departure; be that as it may, I felt great sadness in the train to think that, in spite of their having come to see me leave, they did not seem to love me. I know you will again disapprove of this as false sensitiveness on my part, but I cannot help it, my dear Mother: I am like that, I am hypersensitive to sympathy in general and to the utterances of our people in particular. And for that reason too I love the people here, very simply and childishly perhaps, because they show that they love me: enthusiasm everywhere, genuine, unaffected enthusiasm wherever we go; and yet what are we able to do for them, except give them money! I find this sympathy among the lowest: workmen and labourers whom I had never seen before to my knowledge and to whom I could only speak three or four words of comfort—and I can never find much else to say, it is always the same—and among the soldiers, although they must feel instinctively, in spite of never seeing me except in uniform, that I am no soldier at heart; and also among the students, the priests, the civic authorities and the higher functionaries. Yesterday we went round everywhere, to all the places appointed as refuges: not only the barracks and shops and factories, but even some of the rooms at the law-courts, two of the theatres and the prison, poor souls! And also St. Ladislas. From the Round Tower we had a view of the surrounding country: towards the east there was nothing but water and water, like a sea. My heart felt as though screwed tight into my breast.
"We went to the university also. I remembered most of the professors from two years ago, when I was here as an undergraduate.
"It was a terrible scene outside the town. Oh, Mamma, there were hundreds, there were thousands of corpses, laid out side by side on a meadow, as in a mortuary, before the burial, for identification! I saw harrowing scenes, my heart was torn asunder: troops of relations who sought or who, sobbing, had found. A terrible air of woe filled the whole atmosphere. I felt sick and turned quite pale, it required all my energy to prevent myself from fainting, but Herman put his arm through mine and supported me as well as he was able without ostentation, while a couple of doctors from among the group of physicians to whom I was speaking gave me something to smell. Oh, Mamma, it was a terrible spectacle, all those pallid, shapeless, swollen corpses, on the green grass, and, above, the sky, which had become deep blue again!
"I have informed the municipal council, in accordance with your wish and my father's, that you are each of you presenting a personal donation of a million florins and I presented my own at the same time. The whole world seems in sympathy with us; money is flowing in from every side, but the damage is like a pit that cannot be filled up. As you say, the donation of our Syrian friends is truly princely and oriental.
"What more have I to tell you? I really do not know; my brain is confused with a nightmare of ghastly visions and I have difficulty in thinking logically. But I promise you, my dear Mother, to do what I can and to do it with all my might; and all I ask is that you will send me a single word to tell me that you are not too dissatisfied with your boy.
"As my father desires, I will stay here another week; it seems to do the people good to see us, they love us so. They were enraptured when it was announced that after my departure you and Thera were coming to Altara. You with your soft hand will be able to do so much that we have omitted. How they do love us here! And why are we not always at St. Ladislas? Though the fortress is sombre, it is bright with their sympathy.
"But do not let me write to you so poetically in these distressful days, in which we should be practical. Herman's society does me a deal of good and I can do more when he is by my side. General Ducardi is a fine, indefatigable fellow, as always. The others have all been very willing and practical; and, if I may be allowed respectfully to differ from my Father, I am inclined to think that the municipal council does what it can. It is true, an English engineer told me that with better precautions and a more thorough supervision the Therezia Dyke would perhaps have held out; however, I don't know.
"Herman will accompany me on my journey through the provinces. We shall go to Lycilia and Vaza and so far as possible to the lowlands. These are of course in the worst case.
"I have just received the telegrams: the Marquis of Dazzara dismissed and the Duke of Mena-Doni—I don't like that man—governor of the capital! Lipara under martial law! And will my father succeed in preserving our house of peers by this dissolution of the house of deputies?
"Dearest Mother, his eminence has just sent to ask me to receive him. I do not want to keep him waiting and therefore close my letter hurriedly; with a fond embrace, I am, with fondest and most respectful love,
"your own boy,"OTHOMAR."
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 achaufroidof 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....
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 andsans-gênethat 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.
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 acavaliere serventefor 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 roughsans-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 andsans-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.
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.
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, aroi-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....
The luncheon had all the intimacy of a most charmingtête-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.