"On my honour, a pure accident," said Varvilliers.
"On my honour, a pure accident," said Varvilliers.
There can be no doubt that it was Wetter's intention to take his own life in case he hit me. I had discovered this resolution; Varvilliers was not behind me. Had revolvers been employed no power could have hindered Wetter from carrying out his purpose. But Varvilliers had prevented this, and by despatching my antagonist to seek medical aid had put him on hisparole. He returned with one of my surgeons in a very short space of time; perhaps the desperate fit had passed then, perhaps he had come to feel that he must face the consequences of his act. I know that Varvilliers spoke to him again and very urgently, obtaining at last a pledge from him thathe would at least await the verdict on my case. But when he had fired at me he had considered himself as a man in any event doomed to death. We are strangely at fault in our forecasts of fate. He was uninjured; I, who had been confident of escaping unhurt, lay on the edge between life and death. My presentiment was signally falsified.
But we must be just even to superstitions. I had my presentiment, and it was wrong. Coralie Mansoni also had hers, and most unfortunately, for from hers came the sole danger that threatened the success of our scheme and impaired the perfection of our pretences. Had William Adolphus been a man of strong will no harm would have been done; but he was as wax in her hands. When he left us, he went on his ride, and in the park he met her, driving herself in her little pony-chaise. She had been quite unable to sleep, she said, and had been tempted by the fine morning; had he seen the King? William Adolphus, without a thought of indiscretion, described how he had found us in the Pavilion. In an instant her mind, inflamed by her fancies and readily suspicious, was on fire with fear; fear turned to an instinctive certainty. My brother-in-law was amazed at her agitation; she swept away his opposition; he must take her to the Pavilion, or she would go alone; nothing else would serve. But he should have held her where she was by main force rather than bring her; the one fatal thing was to allow her to appear in the affair at all. He could not withstand her; he did not know the extent of his error, but he knew that to bring her within the precincts of the palace was a sore indiscretion. She overbore him; they burst together into the room, as I have described. And, being there, she would not go, andwas seen by two doctors, by Baptiste, and by the shooting-master, who came to carry me to my apartments. Then at last Varvilliers prevailed on her to allow herself to be smuggled out through the back gate of the gardens, and himself took her to her house in a condition of great distress and collapse. She, at least, was not deceived by the pretence of an accident.
Were other people? I feel myself on doubtful ground. What was said at the moment I know only by hearsay, for I was incapable of attending to anything for three months. There was an enormous amount of gossip and of talk; there were, I think, many hints and smiles; there were hundreds of people who knew the truth, but were careful not to submit their versions to the test of publicity. But what could be done? Varvilliers and Vohrenlorf, men of unblemished honour, were firm in their assertions and unshaken in their evidence; Wetter's obvious consternation at the event was invoked as confirmatory evidence. As soon as I was able to give my account, my voice and authority were cast decisively into the same scale. Men might suspect and women might gossip. Nothing could be done; and as soon as the first stir was over, Wetter left for a tour abroad without any opposition, and carrying with him a good deal of sympathy. The King's own carelessness was of course responsible, but it was very terrible for Wetter, so they said.
But a point remains; how did we account for Coralie and the presence of Coralie? In fact we never did account very satisfactorily for Coralie. We sacrificed—or rather Varvilliers and Vohrenlorf sacrificed—William Adolphus without hesitation, saying truly enough that he had brought her. Victoria was extremely angry and my brother-in-lawmuch aggrieved. But I must admit that the story met with very hesitating acceptance. Some denied it altogether, the more clear-sighted perceived that, even were its truth allowed, it presupposed more than it told. There was something in the background; that was what everybody thought. What? That was what nobody knew. However I am afraid that there were quite enough suspicion and enough talk to justify my English friend in his remark about the one or two scandals which attached themselves to my name. I beg leave to hope that his charitable expression of surprise that there were not more may be considered equally well justified.
While I lay ill, Princess Heinrich was the dominant influence in the administration of affairs. When I recovered, I found that Coralie Mansoni was no longer playing in Forstadt, and had left the town some weeks before. I put no questions to my mother. I also found that Varvilliers had resigned his official position in the French service, and remained in Forstadt as a private person. Here again, at Varvilliers' own request, I put no questions to my mother. Finally I was informed that the Bartensteins had offered themselves for a visit. Again I put no questions to my mother. I determined, however, not to be laid on the shelf again for three months, if I could help it.
Such is the history of my secret duel with Wetter and of my acquaintance with Coralie Mansoni up to the date of that occurrence. Such also is the story of that apparently very bad shot which my little son found in the wainscoting of the Garden Pavilion. But it was not such a very bad shot; not everybody would have gone so near and yet made sure of not hitting.
At Artenberg, whither we went when I was convalescent, the family atmosphere recalled old days. We were all in disgrace—Victoria because she had not managed her husband better, William Adolphus for behaviour confessedly scandalous, I by reason of those rumours at which I have hinted. My sister and brother-in-law were told of their faults and warned, the one against professors, the other against actresses. My delinquencies were treated with absolute silence. Princess Heinrich reminded me how I had degraded my office by a studious, though cold, deference toward it on her own part. The king was the king, be he never so unruly. His mother could only disapprove and grieve in silence. But in the hands of Princess Heinrich silence was a trenchant weapon. William Adolphus also was very sulky with me. I found some excuse for him. Toward his wife he wore a hang-dog air; from Princess Heinrich he fairly ran away whenever he could. In these relations toward one another we settled down to pass a couple of summer months at Artenberg. Now was early July. In August would come the visit of the Bartensteins.
Beside this great fact all else troubled me little. I fell victim to an engrossing selfishness. The quarrels and woes of my kindred went unnoticed, except when they served for a moment's amusement. To the fortunes of those with whom I had lately been so much concerned, of Wetter and of Coralie, I was almost indifferent. Varvilliers wrote to me, and I answered in friendly fashion, but I did not at that time desire his presence. So far as my thoughts dwelt on the past, they overleaped what was immediately behind, and took me back to my first rebellion, my first struggle against the fate of my life, my first refusal to run into the mould. I remembered my Governor's comforting assurance that I had still six years; I remembered the dedication of my early love to the Countess. Then I had cherished delusions, thinking that the fate might be avoided. Herein lay the sincerity and honesty of that first attachment, and an enduring quality which made good for it its footing in memory. In it I was not passing the time or merely yielding to a desire for enjoyment. I was struggling with necessity. The high issue had seemed to lend some dignity even to a boy's raw love-making, a dignity that shone dimly through thick folds of encircling absurdity. I had not been particularly absurd in regard to Coralie Mansoni, but neither had there been in that affair any redeeming worthiness or dignity of conception or of struggle. Now all seemed over, struggle and waywardness, the dignified and undignified, the absurdly pathetic and the recklessly impulsive. The six years were nearly gone. Princess Heinrich's steady pressure contracted their extent by some months. The coming of the Bartensteins was imminent. The era of Elsa began.
Old Prince Hammerfeldt had left a successor behind him in the person of his nephew, Baron vonBederhof, and this gentleman was now my Chancellor and my chief official adviser. He was a portly man of about fifty, with red cheeks and black hair. He was high in favour with my mother, the husband of a buxom wife, and the father of nine children. As is not unusual in cases of hereditary succession, he was adequate to his office, although he would certainly not have been selected for it unless he had been his uncle's nephew; but, being the depositary of Hammerfeldt's traditions (although not of his brains), he contrived to pass muster. He came at this time to Artenberg, and urged on me the necessity of a speedy marriage.
"The recent danger, so providentially averted," he said, "is a stronger argument than any I could use."
"It certainly is," said I politely. As a fact, it might be stronger than any he would be likely to use, and yet not be impregnable.
"For the sake of your people, sire, do not delay."
"My dear Baron," said I, "send for the young lady to-morrow. I haven't seen her since she was a child, so let her bring a letter of identification."
"You joke!" said he. "There can be no doubt. Her parents will accompany her."
"True, true!" I exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "There will be really no substantial risk of having an impostor planted on us."
"I am confident," observed Bederhof, "that the marriage will be most happy."
"You are?"
"Undoubtedly, sire."
"Then we won't lose a moment," I cried.
Bederhof looked slightly puzzled, but also rather complimented. He cleared his throat (if only hecould have cleared his head as often and as thoroughly as he did his throat!) and asked, "Er—there are no complications?"
"I beg your pardon, Baron."
"I am ashamed to suggest it, but people do talk. I mean—no other attachment?"
"I have yet to learn, Baron," said I with dignity, "that such a thing, even if it existed, would be of any importance compared to the welfare of the kingdom and the dynasty."
"Not of the least!" he cried hastily.
"I never suspected you of such a paradox really," I assured him with a smile. "And if the lady should harbour such a thing that would be of equal insignificance."
"My uncle, the Prince——" he began.
"Knew all this just as well as we do, my dear Baron," I interrupted. "Come, send for Princess Elsa. I am all impatience."
Even the stupidest of men may puzzle a careful observer on one point—as to the extent of his stupidity. I did not always know whether Bederhof was so superlatively dull as to believe a thing, or merely so permissibly dull as to consider that he ought to pretend to believe it. Perhaps he had come himself not to know the difference between the two attitudes; certain ecclesiastics would furnish an illustration of what I mean. Princess Heinrich's was quite another complexion of mind. She assumed a belief with as much conscious art as a bonnet or a mantle; just as you knew that the natural woman beneath was different from the garment which covered her, so you were aware that my mother's real opinion was absolutely diverse from the view she professed. In both cases propriety forbade any reference to the natural naked substratum. The Princess, with an art that scorned concealment, congratulated me upon my approaching happiness, declared that the marriage was one of inclination, and, having paid it this seemly tribute, at once fell to discussing how the public would receive it. I believe, however, that she detected in me a certain depression of spirits, for she rallied me (again with a superb ignoring of what we were both aware of) on being moped at the moment when I should have been exultant.
"I am looking at it from Elsa's point of view," I explained.
"Elsa's? Really I don't see that Elsa has anything to complain of. The position's beyond what she had any right to expect."
All was well with Elsa; that seemed evident enough; it was a better position than Elsa had any right to expect. Poor dear child, I seemed to see her rolling down the bank again, expecting and desiring no other position than to be on her back, with her little legs twinkling about in the air.
"I think," said I meditatively, "that it would be a good thing if, in providing wives, they reverted to the original plan and took out a rib. One wouldn't feel that one's rib had any particular right to complain at having its fortunes mixed up with one's own."
My mother remained silent. I looked across the terrace and saw Victoria's three-year-old girl playing about.
"The child's so like William Adolphus," said I, sighing.
My mother rose with deliberate carelessness and walked away.
It may be wondered why I did not rebel. I mustanswer, first, from the binding force of familiarity; I hated the thing, but it had made good its place in the map of my life; secondly, from the impossibility of inflicting a slight; thirdly, because I rather chose to bear the ills I had than fly to others that I knew not of. Who revolts save in the glowing hope of bettering his lot? I must marry; who was there to be preferred before Elsa? It did not occur to me that I might remain single; I should have shared the general opinion that such an act was little removed from treason. It would not only be to end my own line, it would be to install the children of William Adolphus. I did not grant even a moment's hospitality to such an idea. Bederhof was right, the marriage was urgent; I must marry—just as occasionally I was compelled to review the troops. I had as little aptitude for one duty as for the other, but both were among my obligations. I was so rooted in this attitude that I turned to Victoria with a start of surprise when she said to me one day:
"She's very pretty; I daresay you'll fall in love with her."
She was pretty, if her last portrait spoke truth; she was a slim girl, of very graceful figure, with small features and large blue eyes, which were merry in the picture, but looked as if they could be sad also. I had studied this attractive shape attentively; yet Victoria's suggestion seemed preposterous, incongruous—I had nearly said improper. A moment later it set me laughing.
"Perhaps I shall," I said with a chuckle.
"I don't see anything amusing in the idea," observed Victoria. "I think you're being given a much better chance than I ever had."
The old grudge was working in her mind; bycovert allusion she was recalling the part I had taken in the arrangement of her future. Yet she had contrived to be jealous of her husband; that old puzzle recurs.
"I suppose," I mused, "that I'm having a very good chance." I looked inquiringly at my sister.
"If you use it properly. You can be very pleasant to women when you like. She's sure to come ready to fall in love with you. She's such a child."
"You mean that she'll have no standard of comparison?"
"She can't have had any experience at all."
"Not even a baron over at Waldenweiter?"
"What a fool I was!" reflected Victoria. "Mother was horrid, though," she added a moment later. She never allowed the perception of her own folly to plead on behalf of Princess Heinrich. "I expect you'll go mad about her," she resumed. "You see, any woman can manage you, Augustin. Think of——"
"Thanks, dear, I remember them all," I interposed.
"The question is, how will mother treat her," pronounced Victoria.
It was not the question at all; that Victoria thought it was merely illustrated the Princess's persistent dominance over her daughter's imagination. I allow, however, that it was an interesting, although subordinate speculation.
The Bartensteins' present visit was to be as private as possible. The arrangement was that Elsa and I should be left to roam about the woods together, to become well known to one another, and after about three weeks to fall in love. The Duke was not to be of the party on this occasion (wiseDuke!) and, when I had made my proposal, mother and daughter would return home to receive the father's blessing and to wait while the business was settled. When all was finished, I should receive my bride in state at Forstadt, and the wedding would be solemnized. In reply to my questions Bederhof admitted that he could not at present fix the final event within a fortnight or so; he did not, however, consider this trifling uncertainty material.
"No more do I, my dear Baron," said I.
"Here," said he, "is the picture of your Majesty which Princess Heinrich has just sent to Bartenstein."
I looked at the lanky figure, the long face, and the pained smile which I had presented to the camera.
"Good gracious!" I murmured softly.
"I beg your pardon, sire?"
"It is very like me."
"An admirable picture."
What in the world was Elsa feeling about it? Thanks to this picture, I was roused from the mood of pure self-regard and allowed my mind to ask how the world was looking to Elsa. I did not find encouragement in the only answer that I could honestly give to my question.
Just at this time I received a letter from Varvilliers containing intelligence which was not only interesting in itself, but seemed to possess a peculiar appositeness. He had heard from Coralie Mansoni, and she announced to him her marriage with a prominent operatic impresario. "You have perhaps seen the fellow," Varvilliers wrote. "He has small black eyes and large black whiskers; his stomach is very big, but, for shame or for what reason I know not, he hides it behind a bigger gold locket. Coraliedetests him, but it has been her ambition to sing in grand opera. 'It is my career,mon cher,' she writes. Behold, sentiment is sacrificed, and we shall hear her in Wagner! She thinks that she performs a duty, and she is almost sure that it need not be very onerous. She is a sensible woman, our dear Coralie. For the rest I have no news save that Wetter is said to have broken the bank at baccarat, and may be expected shortly to return home and resume his task of improving the condition and morals of the people. I hear reports of your Majesty that occasion me concern. But courage! Coralie has led the way!"
"Come," said I to myself aloud, "if Coralie, although she detests him, yet for her career's sake marries him, it little becomes me to make wry faces. Haven't I also, in my small way, a career?"
But Coralie hoped that her duty would not be very onerous. I had nothing to do with that. The difference there was in temperament, not circumstances.
I have kept the Duchess and Elsa an intolerably long while on their journey to Artenberg. In fact they came quickly and directly; we were advised of their start, and two days of uncomfortable excitement brought us to the hour of their arrival. For once in her life Princess Heinrich betrayed signs of disturbance; to my wonder I detected an undisguised look of appeal in her eyes as she watched me at my luncheon which I took with her on the fateful day. I understood that she was imploring me to treat the occasion properly, and that its importance had driven her from her wonted reserve. I endeavoured to reassure her by a light and cheerful demeanour, but my effort was not successful enoughto prevent her from saying a few words to me after the meal. I assured her that Elsa should receive from me the most delicate respect.
"I'm not afraid of your being too precipitate," she said. "It's not that."
"No, I shall not be too precipitate," I agreed.
"But remember that—that she's quite a girl, and"—my mother broke off, looked at me for a moment, and then looked away—"she'll like you if you make her think you like her," she went on in a moment.
I seemed suddenly to see the true woman and to hear the true opinion. The crisis then was great; my mother had dropped the veil and thrown aside her finished art.
"I hope to like her very much," said I.
Princess Heinrich was a resolute woman; the path on which she set her foot she trod to the end.
"I know what you've persuaded yourself you feel about it," she said bluntly and rather scornfully. "Well, don't let her see that."
"She would refuse me?"
"No. She'd marry you and hate you for it. Above all, don't laugh at her."
I sat silently looking at Princess Heinrich.
"You're so strange," she said. "I don't know what's made you so. Have you no feelings?"
"Do you think that?" I asked, smiling.
"Yes, I do," she answered defiantly. "You were the same even as a boy. It was no use appealing to your affections."
I had outgrown my taste for wrangles. But I certainly did not recollect that either Krak or my mother had been in the habit of appealing to my affections; Krak's appeals, at least, had been addressed elsewhere. Yet my mother spoke in absolute sincerity.
"It's only just at first that it matters," she went on in a calmer tone. "Afterward she won't mind. You'll learn not to expect too much from one another."
"I assure you that lesson is already laid to my heart," said I, rising.
My mother ended the interview and resumed her mask. She called Victoria to her and sent her to make a personal inspection of the quarters prepared for our guests. I sat waiting on the terrace, while William Adolphus wandered about in a state of conscious and wretched superfluousness. I believe that Victoria had forbidden him to smoke.
They came; there ensued some moments of embracing. Good Cousin Elizabeth was squarer and stouter than six years ago. Her cheeks had not lost their ruddy hue. She was a favourite of mine, and I was glad to find that her manner had not lost its heartiness as she kissed me affectionately on both cheeks. At the same time there was a difference. Cousin Elizabeth was a little flurried and a little apologetic. When she turned to Elsa I saw her eye run in a rapid anxious glance over her daughter's raiment. Then she led her forward.
"She's changed since you saw her last, isn't she?" she asked in a mixture of pride and uneasiness. "But you've seen photographs, of course," she added immediately.
I bent low and kissed my cousin's hand. She was very visibly embarrassed, and her cheeks turned red. She glanced at her mother as though asking what she ought to do. In the end she shook hands and glanced again, apparently in a sudden conviction that she had done the wrong thing. There can be very little doubt that we ought to have kissed one another on the cheek. Victoria came up, and I turned away to give my arm to Cousin Elizabeth.
"She's so young," whispered Cousin Elizabeth, hugging my arm.
"She's a very pretty girl," said I, responsively pressing Cousin Elizabeth's fingers.
Cousin Elizabeth smiled, and I felt her pat my arm ever so gently. I could not help smiling, in spite of my mother's warning. I heard Victoria chattering merrily to Elsa. A gift of inconsequent chatter is by no means without its place in the world, although we may prefer that others should supply the commodity. I heard Elsa's bright sweet laugh in answer. She was much more comfortable with Victoria. A minute later the arrival of Victoria's little girl made her absolutely happy.
I had been instructed to treat the Duchess with the most distinguished courtesy and the highest tributes of respect. My mother and I put her between us and escorted her to her rooms. Elsa, it was considered, would be more at her ease without such pomp. My mother was magnificent. On such occasions she shone. Nevertheless she rather alarmed honest Cousin Elizabeth. A perfect manner alarms many people; it seems so often to exhibit an unholy remoteness from the natural. Cousin Elizabeth was, I believe, rather afraid of being left alone with my mother. For her sake I rejoiced to meet her servants hurrying up to her assistance. I returned to the garden.
Elsa had not gone in; she sat on a seat with Victoria's baby in her arms. Victoria was standingby, telling her how she ought and ought not to hold the little creature. William Adolphus also had edged near and stood hands in pockets, with a broad smile on his excellent countenance. I paused and watched. He drew quite near to Victoria; she turned her head, spoke to him, smiled and laughed merrily. Elsa tossed and tickled the baby; both Victoria and William Adolphus looked pleased and proud. It is easy to be too hard on life; one should make a habit of reflecting occasionally out of what very unpromising materials happiness can be manufactured. These four beings were at this moment, each and all of them, incontestably happy. Ah, well, I must go and disturb them!
I walked up to the group. On the sight of me Victoria suppressed her kindliness toward her husband; she did not wish me to make the mistake of supposing that she was content. William Adolphus looked supremely ashamed and uncomfortable. The child, being suddenly snatched by her mother, puckered lips and brows and threatened tears. Elsa sprang up with heightened colour and stood in an attitude of uneasiness. Why, yes, I had disturbed their happiness very effectually.
"I didn't mean to interrupt you," I pleaded.
"Nonsense; we weren't doing anything," said Victoria. "I'll show you your rooms, Elsa, shall I?"
Elsa, I believe, would have elected to be shown something much more alarming than a bedroom in order to escape from my presence. She accepted Victoria's offer with obvious thankfulness. The two went off with the baby. William Adolphus, still rather embarrassed, took out a cigar. We sat down side by side and both began to smoke. There was a silence for several moments.
"She's a pretty girl," observed my brother-in-law at last.
"Very," I agreed.
"Seems a bit shy, though," he suggested, with a sidelong glance at me.
"She seemed to be getting on very well with you and the baby."
"Oh, yes, she was all right then," said William Adolphus.
"I suppose," said I, "that I frighten her rather."
William Adolphus took a long pull at his cigar, looked at the ash carefully, and then gazed for some moments across the river toward Waldenweiter. It was a beautiful evening, and my eyes followed in the same direction. Thus we sat for quite a long time. Then William Adolphus gave a laugh.
"She's got to get used to you," he said.
"Precisely," said I.
For that was pretty Elsa's task in life.
I should be doing injustice to my manners and (a more serious offence) distorting truth, if I represented myself as a shy gaby, afraid or ashamed to make love because people knew the business on which I was engaged. Holding a position like mine has at least the virtue of curing a man of such folly; I had been accustomed to be looked at from the day I put on breeches, and, thanks to unfamiliarity with privacy, had come not to expect and hardly to miss it. The trouble was unhappily of a deeper and more obstinate sort, rooted in my own mind and not due to the covert stares or open good-natured interest of those who surrounded me. There is a quality which is the sign and soul of high and genuine pleasure, whether of mind or body, of sight, feeling, or imagination; I mean spontaneity. This characteristic, with its included incidents of unexpectedness, of suddenness, often of unwisdom and too entire absorption in the moment, comes, I take it, from a natural agreement of what you are with what you do, not planned or made, but revealed all at once and full-grown; when the heart finds it, it knows that it is satisfied. The action fits the agent—the exercise matches the faculty. Thenceforward what you are about does itself without your aid, but poursinto your hand the treasure that rewards success, the very blossom of life. There may be bitterness, reproaches, stings of conscience, or remorse. These things are due to other claims and obligations, artificial, perhaps, in origin, although now of binding force. Beneath and beyond them is the self-inspired harmony of your nature with your act, sometimes proud enough to claim for itself a justification from the mere fact of existence, oftener content to give that question the go-by, whispering softly, "What matters that? I am."
By some such explanation as this, possibly not altogether wide of the mark, I sought to account for my disposition in the days that followed Elsa's arrival. I was conscious of an extreme reluctance to set about my task. I have used the right word there; a task it seemed to me. The trail of business and arrangement was over it; it was defaced by an intolerable propriety, ungraced by a scrap of uncertainty; its stages had been marked, numbered, and catalogued beforehand. Bederhof knew the wedding-day to within a fortnight, the settlement to within a shilling, the addresses of congratulation to a syllable. To this knowledge we were all privy. God save us, how we played the hypocrite!
I am fully aware that there are men to whom these feelings would not have occurred. There are probably women in regard to whom nobody would have experienced them in a very keen form. Insensibility is infectious. We have few scruples in regard to the unscrupulous. We feel that the exact shade of colour is immaterial when we present a new coat to a blind man. Had Hammerfeldt left as his legacy the union with some rude healthy creature, to follow his desire might have been an easy thing—one which, on a broad view of my life, would have been relatively insignificant. I should have disliked my duty and done it, as I did a thousand things I disliked. But I should not have been afflicted with the sense that where I endured ten lashes another endured a thousand; that, being a fellow-sufferer, I seemed the executioner; that, myself yearning to be free, I was busied in forging chains. It was in this light that Elsa made me regard myself, so that every word to her from my lips seemed a threat, every approach an impertinence, every hour of company I asked a forecast of the lifelong bondage that I prepared for her. This was my unhappy mood, while Victoria laughed, jested, and spurred me on; while William Adolphus opined that Elsa must get used to me; while Cousin Elizabeth smiled open motherly encouragement; while Princess Heinrich moved through the appropriate figures as though she graced a stately minuet. I had come to look for little love in the world; I was afflicted with the new terror that I must be hated.
Yet she did not hate me; or, at least, our natures were not such as to hate one another or to be repugnant naturally. Nay, I believe that we were born to be good and appreciative friends. Sometimes in those early days we found a sympathy of thought that made us for the moment intimate and easy, forgetful of our obligation, and frankly pleased with the society which we afforded one another. Soon I came to enjoy these intervals, to look and to plan for them. In them I seemed to get glimpses of what my young cousin ought to be always; but they were brief and fleeting. An intrusion ended them; or, more often, they were doomed to perish at my hands or at hers. A troubled shyness would suddenly eclipse her mirth;or I would be seized with a sense that my cheating of fate was useless, and served only to make the fate more bitter. She seemed to dread any growth of friendship, and to pull herself up abruptly when she felt in danger of being carried away into a genuine comradeship. I was swiftly responsive to such an attitude; again we drew apart. Here is an extract from a letter which I wrote to Varvilliers:
"My dear Varvilliers: The state of things here is absurd enough. My cousin and I can't like, because we are ordered to love; can't be friends, because we must be mates; can't talk, because we must flirt; can't be comfortable alone together, because everybody prepares ourtête-à-têtefor us. She is in apprehension of an amourousness which I despair of displaying; I am ashamed of a backwardness which is her only comfort. And the audience grows impatient; had the gods given them humour they would laugh consumedly. Surely even they must smile soon, and so soon as they smile I must take the leap; for, my dear friend, we may be privately unhappy, but we must not be publicly ludicrous. To-day, as we walked a yard apart along the terrace, I seemed to see a smile on a gardener's face. If it were of benevolence, matters may not advance just yet; if I conclude that amusement inspired it, even before you receive this I may have performed my duty and she her sacrifice. Pray laugh at and for me from your safe distance; in that there can be no harm. I laugh myself sometimes, but dare not risk sharing my laugh with Elsa. She has humour, but to ask her to turn its rays on this situation would be too venturous a stroke. An absolute absorption in the tragic aspect is probably the only specific whichwill enable her to endure. Unhappily the support of pure tragedy, with its dignity of unbroken gloom, is not mine. I forget sometimes to be unhappy in reflecting that I am damnably ridiculous. What, I wonder, were the feelings of Coralie at the first attentions of her big-bellied impresario? Did stern devotion nerve her? Was her face pale and her lips set in tragic mode? Or did she smile and yawn and drawl and shrug in her old delightful fashion? I would give much to be furnished with details of this parallel. Meanwhile Bederhof tears his hair, for I threaten to be behind time, and the good Duchess tells me thrice daily that Elsa is timid. Princess Heinrich has made no sign yet; when she frowns I must kiss. So stands the matter. I must go hence to pray her to walk in the woods with me. She will flush and flutter, but, poor child, she will come. What I ask she will not and must not refuse. But, deuce take it, I ask so little! There's the rub! I hear your upbraiding voice, 'Pooh, man, catch her up and kiss her!' Ah, my dear Varvilliers, you suffer under a confusion. She is a duty; and who is impelled by duty to these sudden cuttings of a knot? And she does a duty, and would therefore not kiss me in return. And I also, doing duty, am duty. Thus we are both of us strangled in the black coils of that belauded serpent."
"My dear Varvilliers: The state of things here is absurd enough. My cousin and I can't like, because we are ordered to love; can't be friends, because we must be mates; can't talk, because we must flirt; can't be comfortable alone together, because everybody prepares ourtête-à-têtefor us. She is in apprehension of an amourousness which I despair of displaying; I am ashamed of a backwardness which is her only comfort. And the audience grows impatient; had the gods given them humour they would laugh consumedly. Surely even they must smile soon, and so soon as they smile I must take the leap; for, my dear friend, we may be privately unhappy, but we must not be publicly ludicrous. To-day, as we walked a yard apart along the terrace, I seemed to see a smile on a gardener's face. If it were of benevolence, matters may not advance just yet; if I conclude that amusement inspired it, even before you receive this I may have performed my duty and she her sacrifice. Pray laugh at and for me from your safe distance; in that there can be no harm. I laugh myself sometimes, but dare not risk sharing my laugh with Elsa. She has humour, but to ask her to turn its rays on this situation would be too venturous a stroke. An absolute absorption in the tragic aspect is probably the only specific whichwill enable her to endure. Unhappily the support of pure tragedy, with its dignity of unbroken gloom, is not mine. I forget sometimes to be unhappy in reflecting that I am damnably ridiculous. What, I wonder, were the feelings of Coralie at the first attentions of her big-bellied impresario? Did stern devotion nerve her? Was her face pale and her lips set in tragic mode? Or did she smile and yawn and drawl and shrug in her old delightful fashion? I would give much to be furnished with details of this parallel. Meanwhile Bederhof tears his hair, for I threaten to be behind time, and the good Duchess tells me thrice daily that Elsa is timid. Princess Heinrich has made no sign yet; when she frowns I must kiss. So stands the matter. I must go hence to pray her to walk in the woods with me. She will flush and flutter, but, poor child, she will come. What I ask she will not and must not refuse. But, deuce take it, I ask so little! There's the rub! I hear your upbraiding voice, 'Pooh, man, catch her up and kiss her!' Ah, my dear Varvilliers, you suffer under a confusion. She is a duty; and who is impelled by duty to these sudden cuttings of a knot? And she does a duty, and would therefore not kiss me in return. And I also, doing duty, am duty. Thus we are both of us strangled in the black coils of that belauded serpent."
I did not tell Varvilliers everything. Had I allowed myself complete unreserve I must have added that she charmed me, and that the very charm I found in her made my work harder. There was a dainty delicacy about her, the freshness of a flower whose velvet bloom no finger-touch has rubbed. This I was to destroy.
But at last from fear, not of the gardener's smiles, but of my own ridicule, I made my start, and, as I foreshadowed to Varvilliers, it was as we walked in the woods that I began.
"What of that grenadier?" I asked her—she was sitting on a seat, while I leaned against a tree-trunk—"the grenadier you were in love with when I was at Bartenstein. You remember? You described him to me."
She blushed and laughed a little.
"He married a maid of my mother's, and became one of the hall-porters. He's grown so fat."
"The dream is ended then?"
"Yes, if it ever began," she answered. "How amused at me you must have been!"
Suddenly she perceived my gaze on her, and her eyes fell.
"He was Romance, Elsa," said I. "He has married and grown fat. His business now is to shut doors; he has shut the door on himself."
"Yes," she answered, half-puzzled, half-embarrassed.
"He had an unsuccessful rival," said I. "Do you recollect him? A lanky boy whom nobody cared much about. Elsa, the grenadier is out of the question."
Now she was agitated; but she sat still and silent. I moved and stood before her. My whole desire was to mitigate her fear and shrinking. She looked up at me gravely and steadily. It went to my heart that the grenadier was out of the question. Her lips quivered, but she maintained a tolerable composure.
"You should not say that about—about the lanky boy, Augustin," said she. "We all liked him, I liked him."
"Well, he deserved it a little better then than now. Yet perhaps, since the grenadier——"
"I don't understand what you mean about the grenadier."
"Yes, don't you?" I asked with a smile. "No dreams, Elsa, that you told to nobody?"
She flushed for a moment, then she smiled. Her smiling heartened me, and I went on in lighter vein.
"One can never be sure of being miserable," I said.
"No," she murmured softly, raising her eyes a moment to mine. The glance was brief, but hinted a coquetry whose natural play would have delighted—well, the grenadier.
She seemed very pretty, sitting there in the half-shade, with the sun catching her fair hair. I stood looking down on her; presently her eyes rose to mine.
"Not of being absolutely miserable," said I.
"You wouldn't make anybody miserable. You're kind. Aren't you kind?"
She grew grave as she put her question. I made her no answer in words; I bent down, took her hand, and kissed it. I held it, and she did not draw it away. I looked in her eyes; there I saw the alarm and the shrinking that I had expected. But to my wonder I seemed to see something else. There was excitement, a sparkle witnessed to it; I should scarcely be wrong if I called it triumph. I was suddenly struck with the idea that I had read my feelings into her too completely. It might be an exaggeration to say that she wished to marry me, but was there not something in her that found satisfaction in the thought of marrying me? I remembered with a new clearness how the little girl who rolled down the hillhad thought that she would like to be a queen. At that moment this new idea of her brought me pure relief. I suppose there were obvious moralizings to be done; it was also possible to take the matter to heart, as a tribute to my position at the cost of myself. I felt no soreness, and I did no moralizing. I was honestly and fully glad that for any reason under heaven she wished to marry me.
Moreover this touch of a not repulsive worldliness in her sapped some of my scruples. What I was doing no longer seemed sacrilege. She had one foot on earth already then, this pretty Elsa, lightly poised perhaps, and quite ethereal, yet in the end resting on this common earth of ours. She would get used to me, as William Adolphus put it, all the sooner. I took courage. The spirit of the scene gained some hold on me. I grew less repressed in manner, more ardent in looks. I lost my old desire not to magnify what I felt. The coquetry in her waged now an equal battle with her timidity.
"You're sure you like me?" she asked.
"Is it incredible? Have they never told you how pretty you are?"
She laughed nervously, but with evident pleasure. Her eyes were bright with excitement. I held out my hands, and she put hers into them. I drew her to me and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She shrank suddenly away from me.
"Don't be frightened," I said, smiling.
"I am frightened," she answered, with a look that seemed almost like defiance.
"Shall we say nothing about it for a little while?"
This proposal did not seem to attract her, or to touch the root of the trouble, if trouble there were.
"I must tell mother," she said.
"Then we'll tell everybody." I saw her looking at me with earnest anxiety. "My dear," said I, "I'll do what I can to make you happy."
We began to walk back through the wood side by side. Less on my guard than I ought to have been, I allowed myself to fall into a reverie. My thoughts fled back to previous love-makings, and, having travelled through these, fixed themselves on Varvilliers. It was but two days since I sent him a letter almost asserting that the task was impossible to achieve. He would laugh when he heard of its so speedy accomplishment. I began in my own mind to tell him about it, for I had come to like telling him my states of feeling, and no doubt often bored him with them; but he seemed to understand them, and in his constant minimizing of their importance I found a comfort. I had indeed almost followed the advice he would have given me—almost taken her up and kissed her, and there ended the matter. A low laugh escaped from me.
"Why are you laughing?" Elsa asked, turning to me with a puzzled look.
"I've been so very much afraid of you," I answered.
"You afraid of me!" she cried. "Oh, if you only knew how terrified I've been!" She seemed to be seized with an impulse to confidence. "It was terrible coming here to see whether I should do, you know."
"You knew you'd do!"
"Oh, no. Mother always told me I mightn't. She said you were—were rather peculiar."
"I don't know enough about other people to be able to say whether I'm peculiar."
She laughed, but not as though she saw any pointin my observation (I daresay there was none), and walked on a few yards, smiling still. Then she said:
"Father will be pleased."
"I hope everybody will be pleased. When you go to Forstadt the whole town will run mad over you."
"What will they do?"
"Oh, what won't they do? Crowds, cheers, flowers, fireworks, all the rest of it. And your picture everywhere!"
She drew in her breath in a long sigh. I looked at her and she blushed.
"You'll like that?" I asked with a laugh.
She did not speak, but nodded her head twice. Her eyes laughed in triumph. She seemed happy now. My pestilent perversity gave me a shock of pain for her.
When we came near the house she asked me to let her go alone and tell her mother. I had no objection to offer. Indeed I was glad to escape a hand-in-hand appearance, rather recalling the footlights. She started off, and I fell into a slower walk. She almost ran with a rare buoyancy of movement. Once she turned her head and waved her hand to me merrily. I waited a little while at the end of the terrace, and then effected an entry into my room unperceived. The women would lose no time in telling one another; then there would be a bustle. I had now a quiet half-hour. By a movement that seemed inevitable I sat down at my writing-table and took up a pen. For several minutes I sat twirling the quill between my fingers. Then I began to write:
"My dear Varvilliers: The impossible has happened, and was all through full of its own impossibility. I have done it. That now seems a little thing. The marvel remains. 'An absolute absorption in the tragic aspect'—you remember, I daresay, my phrase; that was to have been her mood—seen through my coloured glasses. My glasses! Am I not too blind for any glasses? She has just left me and run to her mother. She went as though she would dance. She is merry and triumphant. I am employed in marvelling. She wants to be a queen; processions and ovations fill her eyes. She is happy. I would be happy for her sake, but I am oppressed by an anticipation. You will guess it. It is unavoidable that some day she will remember myself. We may postpone, but we can not prevent, this catastrophe. What I am in myself, and what I mean to her, are things which she will some day awake to. I have to wait for the time. Yet that she is happy now is something, and I do not think that she will awake thoroughly before the marriage. There is therefore, as you will perceive, no danger of anything interfering with the auspicious event. My dear friend, let us ring the church bells and sing aTe Deum; and the Chancellor shall write a speech concerning the constant and peculiar favour of God toward my family, and the polite piety with which we have always requited His attentions. For just now all is well. She sleeps."Your faithful friend,"Augustin."
"My dear Varvilliers: The impossible has happened, and was all through full of its own impossibility. I have done it. That now seems a little thing. The marvel remains. 'An absolute absorption in the tragic aspect'—you remember, I daresay, my phrase; that was to have been her mood—seen through my coloured glasses. My glasses! Am I not too blind for any glasses? She has just left me and run to her mother. She went as though she would dance. She is merry and triumphant. I am employed in marvelling. She wants to be a queen; processions and ovations fill her eyes. She is happy. I would be happy for her sake, but I am oppressed by an anticipation. You will guess it. It is unavoidable that some day she will remember myself. We may postpone, but we can not prevent, this catastrophe. What I am in myself, and what I mean to her, are things which she will some day awake to. I have to wait for the time. Yet that she is happy now is something, and I do not think that she will awake thoroughly before the marriage. There is therefore, as you will perceive, no danger of anything interfering with the auspicious event. My dear friend, let us ring the church bells and sing aTe Deum; and the Chancellor shall write a speech concerning the constant and peculiar favour of God toward my family, and the polite piety with which we have always requited His attentions. For just now all is well. She sleeps.
"Your faithful friend,
"Augustin."
I had just finished this letter when Baptiste rushed in, exclaiming that the Duchess had come, and that he could by no means prevent her entry. The truth of what he said was evident; Cousin Elizabeth herself was hard on his heels. She almost ranin, and made at me with wide-opened arms. Her honest face beamed with delight as she folded me in an enthusiastic embrace. Looking over her shoulder, I observed Baptiste standing in a respectful attitude, but struggling with a smile.
"You can go, Baptiste," said I, and he withdrew, smiling still.
"My dearest Augustin," panted Cousin Elizabeth, "you have made us all very, very happy. It has been the dream of my life."
I forget altogether what my answer was, but her words struck sharp and clear on my mind. That phrase pursued me. It had been the dream of Max von Sempach's life to be Ambassador. There had been a dream in his wife's life. It was the dream of Coralie's life to be a great singer; hence came the impresario with his large locket and the rest. And now, quaintly enough, I was fulfilling somebody else's dream of life—Cousin Elizabeth's! Perhaps I was fulfilling my own; but my dream of life was a queer vision.
"So happy! So happy!" murmured Cousin Elizabeth, seeking for her pocket-handkerchief. At the moment came another flurried entry of Baptiste. He was followed by my mother. Cousin Elizabeth disengaged herself from me. Princess Heinrich came to me with great dignity. I kissed her hand; she kissed my forehead.
"Augustin," she said, "you have made us all very happy."
The same note was struck in my mother's stately acknowledgment and in Cousin Elizabeth's gushing joy. I chimed in, declaring that the happiness I gave was as nothing to what I received. My mother appeared to consider this speech proper and adequate,Cousin Elizabeth was almost overcome by it. The letter which lay on the table, addressed to Varvilliers, was fortunately not endowed with speech. It would have jarred our harmony.
Later in the day Victoria came to see me. I was sitting in the window, looking down on the river and across to the woods of Waldenweiter. She sat down near me and smiled at me. Victoria carried with her an atmosphere of reality; she neither harboured the sincere delusions of Cousin Elizabeth nor (save in public) sacrificed with my mother on the shrine of propriety. She sat there and smiled at me.
"My dear Victoria," said I, "I know all that as well as you do. Didn't we go through it all before, when you married William Adolphus?"
"I've just left Elsa," my sister announced. "The child's really half off her head; she can't grasp it yet."
"She is excited, I suppose."
"It seems that Cousin Elizabeth never let her count upon it."
"I saw that she was pleased. It surprised me rather."
"Don't be a goose, Augustin," said Victoria very crossly. "Of course she's pleased."
"But I don't think she cares for me in the very least," said I gravely.
For a moment Victoria stared. Then she observed with a perfunctory politeness:
"Oh, you mustn't say that. I'm sure she does." She paused and added: "Of course it's great promotion for her."
Great promotion! I liked Victoria's phrase very much. Of course it was great promotion for Elsa. No wonder she was pleased and danced in her walk;no wonder her eyes sparkled. Nay, it was small wonder that she felt a kindliness for the hand whence came this great promotion.
"Yes, I suppose it is—what did you say? Oh, yes—great promotion," said I to Victoria.
"Immense! She was really a nobody before."
A hint of jealousy lurked in Victoria's tones. Perhaps she did not like the prospect of being no longer at the head of Forstadt society.
"There's nobody in Europe who would have refused you, I suppose," she pursued. "Yes, she's lucky with a vengeance."
I began to laugh. Victoria frowned a little, as though my laughter annoyed her. However I had my laugh out; the picture of my position, sketched by Victoria, deserved that. Then I lit a cigarette and stood looking out of the window.
"Poor child!" said I. "How long will it last?"
Victoria made no answer. She sat where she was for a few moments; then she got up, flung an arm round my neck, and gave me a brief business-like kiss.
"I never knew anybody quite so good as you at being miserable," she said.
But I was not miserable. I was, on the whole, very considerably relieved. It would have been much worse had Elsa really manifested an absolute absorption in the tragic aspect. It was much better that her thoughts should be filled by her great promotion.
I heard suddenly the sound of feet on the terrace. A moment later loud cheers rang out. I looked down from the window. There was a throng of the household, stable, and garden servants gathered in front of the window of my mother's room.On the steps before the window stood Elsa's slim graceful figure. The throng cheered; Elsa bowed, waved, and kissed her hand to them. They cried out good wishes and called blessings on her. Again she kissed her hand to them with pretty dignity. A pace behind her on either side stood Princess Heinrich and Cousin Elizabeth. Elsa held the central place, and her little head was erect and proud.
Poor dear child! The great promotion had begun.
I had a whimsical desire that somebody, no matter who, should speak the truth about the affair. That I myself should was out of the question, nor would candour be admissible from any of my family; even Victoria could do no more than kiss me. Elsa did not know the truth; her realization of it lay in the future—the future to me ever so present. Varvilliers would not tell it; his sincerity owned always the limit of politeness. I could not look to have my whim indulged; perhaps had there seemed a chance of fulfilment I should have turned coward. Yet I do not know; the love of truth has been a constant and strong passion in my mind. Hence come my laborious trackings of it through mazes of moods and feelings; painful trifling, I daresay. But my whim was accomplished; why and under what motive's spur it is hard to guess.
I sent a message to the Chamber announcing my betrothal; a debate on the answer to be returned followed. Here was a proper and solemn formality, rich in coloured phrases and time-honoured pretence. No lie was allowed place that could not prove its pedigree for five hundred years. Then when Bederhof and the rest had prated, there rose (O si audissem) a man with a pale-lined face, in which passion had almost destroyed mirth, or at least compelled it to put on the servile dress of bitterness, but with eyes bright still and a voice that rang through the Chamber. Wetter was back, back from wounding me, back from his madness of Coralie, back from his obscure wanderings and his reported bank-breakings. Somewhere and somehow he had got money enough to keep him awhile; and with money in his pocket he was again and at once a power in Forstadt. There must have been strange doings in that man's soul, worthy of record; but who would be so bold as to take up the pen? His reappearance was remarkable enough. I asked whether he did what he did in malice, in a rivalry that our quarrel and our common defeat at the hands of the paunchy impresario could not wipe out, or whether he discerned that I should join in his acid laugh, and, as I read his speech, cry to myself, "Lo, here is truth and a man who tells it!"
For he rose, there in the Chamber, when Bederhof's sticky syrup had ceased to flow. He spoke of my betrothal, sketching in a poet's mood, with the art of an orator, that perfect love whereof men dream; painting with exquisite skill the man's hot exultation and the girl's tremulous triumph, the spontaneous leap of heart to heart, the world without eclipsed and invisible; the brightness, the glory, and the unquestioning confidence in their eternity. His voice rose victorious out of falterings; his eyes gleamed with the vision that he made. Then, while still they wondered as men shown new things in their own hearts, his lips curved in a smile and his tones fell to a moderate volume. "Such," said he, "are the joys which our country shares with its King. Because they are his they are ours; because theyare his they are hers. Hers and his are they till their lives' end; ours while our hearts are worthy to conceive of them."
They were silent when he sat down. He had outraged etiquette; nobody had ever said that sort of thing before on such an occasion. Bederhof searched in vain through an exhaustive memorandum prepared in the Chancellery. He consulted the clerks. Nobody had ever said anything in the least like it. They were puzzled. It was all most excellent, most loyal, calculated to impress the people in the most favourable way. But, deuce take it, why did the man smile while he talked, and why did his voice change from a ring of a trumpet to the rasp of a file? The Chamber at large was rather upset by Wetter's oration.
Ah, Wetter, but you had an audience fit though small! I read it—I read it all. I, in my study at Artenberg; I, alone. My mind leaped with yours; my lips bent to the curve of yours. Surely you spoke to please me, Wetter? To show that one man knew? To display plainest truth by the medium of a giant's lies? I could interpret. The language was known to me; the irony was after my own heart.
"It's dashed queer stuff," said William Adolphus, scratching his head. "All right in a story book, you know; but in the Chamber! Do you think he's off his head?"
"I don't think so, William Adolphus," said I.
"Victoria says it's hardly—hardly decent, you know."
"I shouldn't call it exactly indecent."
"No, not exactly indecent," he admitted. "But what the devil did he want to say it there for?"
"Ah, that I can't answer."
My brother-in-law looked discontented. Yet as a rule he resigned himself readily enough to not understanding things.
"Victoria says that Princess Heinrich requested the Duchess to manage that Elsa——"
"My dear William Adolphus, the transaction sounds complicated."
"Complicated? What do you mean? Princess Heinrich requested the Duchess not to let Elsa read it."
"Ah, my mother has always good reasons."
"But Elsa had read it already."
"How unfortunate wisdom always is! Did Elsa like it?"
"She told Victoria that it seemed great nonsense."
"Yes, she would think so."
"Well, it is, you know," said William Adolphus.
"Of course it is, my dear fellow," said I.
Yet I wanted to know more about it, and observing that Varvilliers was stated to have been present in the Diplomatic Gallery, I sent for him to come to Artenberg and describe the speech as it actually passed. When I had sent my message I went forth in search of myfiancée. She had read the report already; my mother's measures had been taken too late. What did pretty Elsa think? She thought it was all great nonsense. Poor pretty Elsa!
My heart was hungry. Wetter had broken—as surely he had meant to break—the sleep of memory and the sense of contrast. I went to her not with love, but with some vague expectation, a sort of idea that, contrary to all likelihood, I might again have in some measure what had come to me before, springing now indeed not whence I would, but whence itcould, yet being still itself though grown in an alien soil. The full richness of native bloom it could not win, yet it might attain some pale grace and a fragrance of its own. For these I would compound and thank the malicious wit that gave them me. But she thought it all great nonsense; nay, that was only what she had told Victoria. My mother was wise, and my mother had requested that she should not read it.
When I came to her she was uncertain and doubtful in mood. She did not refer to the speech, but a consciousness of it showed in her embarrassment and in the distrustful mirth of her eyes. She did not know how I looked upon it, nor how I would have her take it; was she to laugh or to be solemn, to ridicule or to pretend with handsome ampleness? There were duties attached to her greatness; was it among them to swallow this? But she knew I liked to joke at some things which others found serious; might she laugh with me at this extravagance?
"Well, you've read the debate?" I asked. "They all said exactly the proper things."
"Did they? I didn't know what the proper things were."
"Oh, yes; except that mad fellow Wetter. It's a sad thing, Elsa; if only he weren't a genius he'd have a great career."
She threw a timid questioning glance at me.
"Victoria says that he talked nonsense," she remarked.
"Victoria declares that it was you who said it."
"Well, I don't know which of us said it first," she laughed. "Princess Heinrich said so too; she said he must have been reading romances and gone mad, like Don Quixote."
"You've read some?"
"Oh, yes, some. Of course, it's different in a story."
So had observed William Adolphus. I marked Victoria as the common origin.
"You see," said I tolerantly, "he's a man of very emotional nature. He's carried away by his feelings, and he thinks other people are like himself." And I laughed a little.
Elsa also laughed, but still doubtfully. She seemed ill at ease. I found her venturing a swift stealthy glance at me; there was something like fear in her eyes. I was curiously reminded of Victoria's expression when she came to Krak with only a half of her exercise written, and mistrusted the validity of her excuse. (Indeed it was always a bad one.) What, then, had Wetter done for her? Had he not set up a hopeless standard of grim duty, frowning and severe? My good sister had meant to be consolatory with her "great nonsense," remembering, perhaps, the Baron over there at Waldenweiter. Elsa was looking straight before her now, her brows puckered. I glanced down at the hand in her lap and saw that it trembled a little. Suddenly she turned and found me looking; she blushed vividly and painfully.
"My dearest little cousin," said I, taking her hand, "don't trouble your very pretty head about such matters. Men are not all Wetters; the fellow's a poet if only he knew it. Come, Elsa, you and I understand one another."
"You're very kind to me," she said. "And—and I'm very fond of you, Augustin."
"It's very charming of you, for there's little enough reason."
"Victoria says several people have been." She hazarded this remark with an obvious effort. I laughed at that. There was also a covert hint of surprise in her glance. Either she did not believe Victoria fully, or she was wondering how the thing had come about. Alas, she was so transparent! I found myself caught by a momentary wish that I had chosen (as if I could choose, though!) a woman of the world, whose accomplished skill should baffle all my scrutiny and leave me still the consolations of uncertainty; it is probable that such a one would have extorted from me a belief in her love for five minutes every day. Not for an instant could that delusion live with Elsa's openness. Yet perhaps she would learn the trick, and I watch her mastery of it in the growth. But at least she should not learn it on my requisition.
Elsa sat silent, but presently a slight meditative smile came on her lips and made a little dimple in her chin. Her thoughts were pleasant then; no more of that grim impossible duty. Had Wetter's wand conjured any other idea into her mind? Had his picture another side for her imagination? It seemed possible enough; it may well have seemed possible to Princess Heinrich when she requested that Elsa should not read the speech. Princess Heinrich may have preferred that such notions should not be suggested at all under the circumstances of the case. There was always a meaning in what Princess Heinrich did.
"What are you thinking of, Elsa?"
"Nothing," she answered with a little start. "Is he a young man?"
"You mean Wetter?"
"Yes."
"Oh, a few years over thirty. But he's made the most of his time in the world. The most, not the best, I mean, you know."
Her thoughts had been on Wetter and Wetter's words. Since she had smiled I concluded that my guess was not far off. Elsa turned to me with a blush and the coquettish air that now and then sat so prettily on her innocence.
"I should think he might have made love rather well," she said.
"I shouldn't wonder in the least," said I. "But he might be a little tempestuous."
"Yes," Elsa acquiesced. "And that wouldn't be nice, would it?"
"Not at all nice," said I, and laughed. Elsa joined in my laugh, but doubtfully and reluctantly, as though she had but a dim glimmer of the reason for it. Then she turned to me with a sudden radiant smile.
"Fancy!" said she. "Mother says I must have forty frocks."
"My dear," said I, "have four hundred."
"But isn't it a lot?"
"I suppose it is," I remarked. "But have anything you ought to have. You like the frocks, Elsa?"
She gave that little emphatic double nod of hers.
We talked no more of the frocks then, but during the few days which followed Elsa's perusal of Wetter's speech there was infinite talk of frocks and all the rest of the furnishings and appurtenances of Elsa's new rank. The impulse which moved women so different as my mother, the Duchess, and Victoria, to a common course of conduct was doubtless based on an universal woman's instinct. All the three seemed to set themselves to dazzle the girl with theglories and pomp that awaited her; at the same time William Adolphus became pressing in his claims on my company. Now Victoria never really supposed that I desired to spend my leisure with William Adolphus; she set him in motion when she had reason to believe that I had better not spend it with some other person. So it had been in the days of the Countess and in Coralie's epoch; so it was now. The idea was obvious; just at present it was better for Elsa to think of her glories than to be too much with me; she was to be led to the place of sacrifice with a bandage over her eyes, a bandage that obscured the contrasted visions of Wetter's imagination and of my actual self. I saw their plan and appreciated it, but seeing did not forbid yielding. I was not hoodwinked, but neither was I stirred to resistance. It seemed to me then that kindness lay in not obtruding myself upon her, in being as little with her as courtesy and appearances allowed, in asking the smallest possible amount of her thoughts and making the least possible claim on her life. They asked me to efface myself, to court oblivion, to hide behind the wardrobe. It was all done with a soothing air, as though it were a temporary necessity, as though with a little patience the mood would pass, almost as though Elsa had some little ailment which would disappear in a few days; while it lasted, men were best out of the way, and would show delicacy by asking no questions. The way in which women act, look, and speak, when they desire to create that impression, is clear and unmistakable; a wise man goes about his business or retires to his smoking-room, his papers, and his books.
The treatment seemed to answer well, and its severity was gradually relaxed. William Adolphus,sighing relief I doubt not (for I was well-nigh as tedious to him as he to me), went off to his horses. I was again encouraged to be more with Elsa, under a caution to say nothing that could excite her. She met me with a quiet gay contentment, seemed pleased to be with me, and was profuse and sincere in thanks for my kindness. Sometimes now she talked of our life after we were married, when Princess Heinrich would be gone and we alone together. She was occupied with innocent wonderings how we should get on, and professed an anxiety lest she should fail in keeping me amused. Then she would take refuge in reminding herself of her many and responsible duties. She would have nearly as much to do as I had, she said, and was not her work really almost as important as mine?
"Princess Heinrich says that the social influence I shall wield is just as important to the welfare of the country," she would say, with that grave inquiring look in her pretty blue eyes.
"All the fashionable folk in Forstadt will think it much more important," said I, laughing. "Especially the young men, Elsa."
"As if I should care about that!" she cried scornfully.
Now and then, at intervals, while I talked to her, the idea of doing what my mother had meant by exciting her came into my head, the idea of satisfying her unconscious longings and of fulfilling for her the dream which had taken shape under the wand of that magician Wetter. I believed then that I could have succeeded in the task; there may be vanity in that opinion, but neither lapse of time nor later experience has brought me to renounce it. Why, then, did I yield to the women's prescription, andrenounce the idea of gaining and chaining her love and her fancy for myself? Nothing in her gives the answer to that question; it must be sought in my mind and my temper. I believed and I believe that if I could have stirred myself I could have stirred her. The claim is not great; Wetter had done half the work for me, and nature was doing the better part of the rest. I should have started with such an advantage that the battle must have been mine. This is not merely perceived in retrospect; it was tolerably clear to me even at the time. But the impulse in me was wanting. I could have won, but I did not truly desire to win. I could have given what she asked, but my own heart was a niggard. It was from me more than from her that the restraint came; it was with me to move, and I could not stir. She was lovable, but I did not love her; she had love to give, but I could not ask for it. To marry her was my duty, to seem to desire the marriage myrôle. There obligation stopped; inclination refused to carry on the work. I had driven a bargain with fate; I would pay the debt to the last farthing, but I could not open my purse again for a gratuity or a bounty. I acquiesced with fair contentment in it, and in the relations which it produced between Elsa and myself. There was a tacit agreement among all of us that a calm and cousinly affection was the best thing, and fully adequate to the needs of the situation. The advice of the women chimed in with my own mood. Making love to her would have seemed to them a dangerous indiscretion, to me a rather odious taking advantage of one who was not a free agent, and a rather humiliating bit of pretence besides. We had all made up our minds that matters had better be left considerably below boiling-point.