Theprivate theatre in the palace was a room of very moderate size, for the audience was necessarily very small; in fact, the stage was larger than the auditorium. The play took place in the afternoon, and there was no artificial light; many of the operatic performances in Italy, indeed, took place in the open air.
Yet, though the time of day and the natural light deprived the theatre of much of the strangeness and glamour with which it is usually associated, and which so much impress a youth who sees it for the firsttime, the effect of the first performance upon Mark was very remarkable. He was seated immediately behind the Prince. Far from being delighted with the play, he was overpowered as it went on by an intense melancholy horror. When the violins, the flutes, and the fifes began the overture, a new sense seemed given to him, which was not pleasure but the intensest dread. If the singing of the Signorina had been a shock to him, accustomed as he was only to the solemn singing of his childhood, what must this elfish, weird, melodious music have seemed, full of gay and careless life, and of artless unconscious airs which yet were miracles of art? He sat, terrified at these delicious sounds, as though this world of music without thought or conscience were a wicked thing. The shrill notes ofthe fifes, the long tremulous vibration of the strings, seemed to draw his heart after them. Wherever this wizard call might lead him it seemed he would have to follow the alluring chords.
But when the acting began his terror became more intense. The grotesque figures seemed to him those of devils, or at the best of fantastic imps or gnomes. He could understand nothing of the dialogue, but the gestures, the laughter, the wild singing, were shocking to him. When the Signorina appeared, the strange intensity of her colour, the brilliancy of her eyes, and what seemed to him the freedom of her gestures and the boldness of her bewitching glances, far from delighting, as they seemed to do all the others, made him ready to weep with shame and grief.He sank back in his seat to avoid the notice of the Prince, who, indeed, was too much absorbed in the music and the acting to remember him.
The beauty of the music only added to his despair; had it been less lovely, had the acting not forced now and then a glance of admiring wonder or struck a note of high-toned touching pathos even, it would not all have seemed so much the work of evil. When the comedy was over he crept silently away to his room; and in the excitement of congratulation and praise, as actors and audience mingled together, and the Signorina was receiving the commendations of the Prince, he was not missed.
He could not stay in this place—that at least was clear to him. He must escape. He must return to nature, to the woodsand birds, to children and to children's sports. These gibing grimaces, these endless bowings and scrapings and false compliments, known of all to be false, would choke him if he stayed. He must escape from the house of frivolity into the soft, gracious outer air of sincerity and truth.
He cried himself to sleep: all through the night, amid fitful slumber, the crowd of masques jostled and mocked at him; the weird strains of unknown instruments reached his half-conscious bewildered sense. Early in the morning he awoke. There had been rain in the night, and the smiling morning beckoned him out.
He stole down some back stairs, and found a door which opened on gardens and walks at the back of the palace. This he managed to open, and went out.
The path on which the door opened led him through rows of fruit-trees and young plantations. A little forest of delicate boughs and young leaves lifted itself up against the blue sky, and a myriad drops sparkled in the morning sun. The fresh cool air, the blue sky, the singing of the birds, restored Mark to himself. He seemed to see again the possibility of escape from evil, and the hope of righteousness and peace. His whole spirit went out in prayer and love to the Almighty, who had made these lovely things. He felt as he had been wont to do when, on a fine Sunday, he had walked home with his children in order, relating to them the most beautiful tales of God. He wandered slowly down the narrow paths. The fresh-turned earth between the rows of saplings,the beds of herbs, the moist grass, gave forth a scent at once delicate and searching. The boy's cheerfulness began to return. The past seemed to fade. He almost thought himself the little schoolmaster again.
After wandering for some time through this delicious land of perfume, of light, and sweet sound, he came to a very long but narrow avenue of old elm trees that led down a gradual slope, as it seemed, into the heart of the forest. Beneath the avenue a well-kept path seemed to point with a guiding hand.
He followed the path for some distance, and had just perceived what seemed to be an old manor-house, standing in a courtyard at the farther end, when he was conscious of a figure advancing along thepath to meet him: as it approached he saw that it was that of a lady of tall and commanding appearance, and apparently of great beauty; she wore the dress of some sisterhood. When he was near enough to see her face he found that it was indeed beautiful, with an expression of the purest sincerity and benevolence. The lady stopped and spoke to Mark at once.
"You must be the new tutor to their Highnesses," she said; "I have heard of you."
Mark said that he was.
"You do not look well," said the lady, very kindly; "are you happy at the palace?"
"Are you the Princess Isoline?" said Mark, not answering the question; "I think you must be, you are so beautiful."
"I am the Princess Isoline," said the lady; "walk a little way with me."
Mark turned with the lady and walked back towards the palace. After a moment or two he said: "I am not happy at Joyeuse, I am very miserable, I want to run away."
"What makes you so unhappy? Are they not kind to you? The Prince is very kind, and the children are good children—I have always thought."
"They are all very kind, too kind to me," said the boy. "I cannot make you understand why I am so miserable, I cannot tell myself—the Prince is worse than all——"
"Why is the Prince the worst of all?" said the lady, in a very gentle voice.
"All the rest I know are wrong,"replied the boy, passionately—"the actors, the Signorina, the pages, and all; but when the Prince looks at me with his quiet smile—when the look comes into his eyes as though he could see through time even into eternity—when he looks at me in his kindly, pitying way—I begin to doubt. Oh, Highness, it is terrible to doubt! Do you think that the Prince is right?"
The Princess was silent for a moment or two; it was not that she did not understand the boy, for she understood him very well.
"No, I think you are right and not the Prince," she said at length, in her quiet voice.
There was a pause: neither seemed to know what to say next. They had nownearly reached the end of the avenue next the palace; the Princess stopped.
"Come back with me," she said, "I will show you my house."
They walked slowly along the narrow pathway towards the old house at the farther end. The Princess was evidently considering what to say.
"Why do you know that they are all wrong?" she said at last.
"Highness," said the boy after a pause, "I have never lived amongst, or seen anything, since I was born, but what was natural and real—the forest, the fruit-trees in blossom, the gardens, and the flowers. I have never heard anything except of God—of the wretchedness of sin—of beautiful stories of good people. My grandfather, when he was alive, used totalk to me, as I sat with him at his charcoal-burning in the forest, of my forefathers who were all honest and pious people. There are not many Princes who can say that."
The Princess did not seem to notice this last uncourtly speech.
"'I shall then find all my forefathers in Heaven,' I would say to him," continued Mark. "'Yes, that thou wilt! we shall then be of high nobility. Do not lose this privilege.' If I lose this privilege, how sad that will be! But here, in the palace, they think nothing of these things—instead of hymns they sing the strangest, wildest songs, so strange and beautiful that I fear and tremble at them as if the sounds were wicked sounds."
So talking, the Princess and the boy wenton through the lovely wood; at last they left the avenue and passed into the courtyard of a stately but decayed house. The walls of the courtyard were overgrown with ivy, and trees were growing up against the house and shading some of the windows. The Princess passed on without speaking, and entered the hall by an open door. As they entered, Mark could hear the sound of looms, and inside were several men and women at different machines employed in weaving cloth. The Princess spoke to several, and leading Mark onward she ascended a wide staircase, and reached at last a long gallery at the back of the house. Here were many looms, and girls and men employed in weaving. The long range of lofty windows faced the north, and over the nearer woods could be seenthe vast sweep of the great Thuringian Forest, where Martin Luther had lived and walked. The risen sun was gilding the distant woods. A sense of indescribable loveliness and peace seemed to Mark to pervade the place.
"How happy you must be here, gracious Highness!" he exclaimed.
They were standing apart in one of the windows towards the end of the long room, and the noise of the looms made a continuous murmur that prevented their voices being heard by the others who were near.
The Princess looked at Mark for some moments without reply.
"I must speak the truth always," she said at last, "but more than ever to such as thou art. I am not happy."
The boy looked at her as though his heart would break.
"Not happy," he said in a low voice, "and you so good."
"The good are not happy," said the Princess, "and the happy are not good."
There was a pause; then the Princess went on:
"The people who are with me are good, but they are not happy. They have left the world and its pleasures, but they regret them; they live in the perpetual consciousness of this self-denial—this fancy that they are serving God better than others are; they are in danger of becoming jealous and hypocritical. I warn you never to join a particular society which proposes, as its object, to serve God better than others. You are safer, more in theway of serving God in the palace, even amid the singing and the music which seems to you so wicked. They are happy; they are thoughtless, gay, like the birds. They have at least no dark gloomy thoughts of God, even if they have no thoughts of Him at all. They may be won to Him, nay, they may be nearer to Him now than some who think themselves so good. Since I began this way of life I have heard of many such societies, which have crumbled into the dust with derision, and are remembered only with reproach."
Mark stood gazing at the distant forest without seeing it. He did not know what to think.
"I do not know why I have told you this," said the Princess; "I had no thoughtof saying such words when I brought you here. I seem to have spoken them without willing it. Perhaps it was the will of God."
"Why do you go on with this life," said Mark sadly, "if it be not good? The Prince would be glad if you would come back to the palace. He has told me so."
It seemed to the boy that life grew more and more sad. It seemed that, baffled and turned back at every turn, there was no reality, no sincere walk anywhere possible. The worse seemed everywhere the better, the children of this world everywhere wiser than the children of light.
"I cannot go back now," said the Princess. "When you are gone I shall forget this; I shall think otherwise. Thereis something in your look that has made me speak like this."
"Then are these people really not happy?" said Mark again.
"Why should they be happy?" said the Princess, with some bitterness in her voice. "They have given up all that makes life pleasant—fine clothes, delicate food, cunning harmonies, love, gay devices, and sports. Why should they be happy? They have dull work, none to amuse or enliven the long days."
"I was very happy in my village outside the palace gates," said Mark quietly; "I had none of these things; I only taught the little peasants, yet I was happy. From morning to night the path was straight before me,—a bright and easy path; and the end was always light. Now allis difficult and strange. Since I passed through the gates with the golden scrolls, which I thought were like the heavenly Jerusalem, all goes crooked and awry; nothing seems plain and righteous as in the pleasant old days. I have come into an enchanted palace, the air of which I cannot breathe and live; I must go back."
"No, not so," said the Princess, "you are wanted here. Where you were you were of little good. There were at least others who could do your work. Here none can do it but you. They never saw any one like you before. They know it and speak of it. All are changed somewhat since you came; you might, it is true, come to me, but I should not wish it. The air of this house would be worse for you even than that of the palace which youfear so much. Besides, the Prince would not be pleased with me."
Mark looked sadly before him for some moments before he said:
"Even if it be true what you say, still I must go. It is killing me. I wish to do right and good to all; but what good shall I do if it takes all my strength and life? I shall ask the Prince to let me go back."
"No," said the Princess, "not that—never that. It is impossible, you cannot go back!"
"Cannot go back!" cried Mark. "Why? The Prince is very kind. He will not keep me here to die."
"Yes, the Prince is very kind, but he cannot do that; what is passed can never happen again. It is the children's phrase,'Do it again.' It can never be done again. You have passed, as you say, the golden gates into an enchanted world; you have known good and evil; you have tasted of the fruit of the so-called Tree of Life; you cannot go back to the village. Think."
Mark was silent for a longer space this time. His eyes were dim, but he seemed to see afar off.
"No," he said at last, "it is true, I cannot go back. The village, and the school, and the children have passed away. I should not find them there, as they were before. If I cannot come to you, there is nothing for me but to die."
"The Pagans," said the Princess, "the old Pagans, that knew their gods but dimly, used to say—"The God-beloved die young." It has been said since by Christianmen.—Do not be afraid to die. Instead of your form and voice there will be remembrance and remorse; instead of indifference and sarcasm there will be contrition; in place of thoughtless kindliness a tender love. Do not be afraid to die. The charm is working now; it will increase when sight is changed for memory, and the changeful irritation of time for changeless recollection and regret. The body of the sown grain is transfigured into the flower of a spiritual life, and from the dust is raised a mystic presence which can never fade. Do not be afraid to die."
Mark walked slowly back to the palace. He could not think; he was stunned and bewildered. He wished the Princess Isoline would have let him come toher. Then he thought all might yet be well. When he reached the palace he found everything in confusion. The Princess and her friend theserventehad suddenly arrived.
Lateron in the day Mark was told that the Princess wished to see him, and that he must wait upon her in her own apartment. He was taken to a part of the palace into which he had hitherto never been; in which a luxurious suite of rooms was reserved for the Princess when she condescended to occupy them. The most easterly of the suite was a morning sitting-room, which opened upon a balcony or trellised verandah, shaded with jasmine. The room was furnished in a very different style from the rest of the palace. Theother rooms, though rich, were rather bare of garniture, after the Italian manner—their ornaments consisting of cabinets of inlaid wood and pictures on the walls, with the centre of the room left clear. These rooms on the contrary, were full of small gilt furniture, after the fashion of the French court. Curious screens, depicting strange birds of gaudy plumage, embarrassed Mark as he entered the room.
The Prince was seated near a lady who was reclining in the window, and opposite to them was a stranger whom Mark knew must be the Count. The lady was beautiful, but with a kind of beauty strange to the boy, and her dress was more wonderful than any he had yet seen, though it was a mere morning robe. She looked curiously at him as he entered the room.
"This, then," she said, "is the clown who is to educate my children."
At this not very encouraging address the boy stopped, and stood silently contemplating the group.
The Count was the first who came to his assistance.
"The youth is not so bad, Princess," he said. "He has an air of society about him, in spite of his youth."
The Prince looked at the Count with a pleased expression.
"Do not fear for the children, Adelaide," he said; "they will fare very well. Their manners are improved already. When they come to Vienna you will see how fine their breeding will be thought to be. Leave them to me. You do not care for them; leave them to me and to the Herr Tutor."
Mark was looking at the Count. This was another strange study for the boy. He was older than the Prince—a man of about forty; more firmly built, and with well-cut but massive features. He wore a peruke of very short, curled hair; his dress was rich, but very simple; and his whole appearance and manner suggested curiously that of a man who carried no more weight than he could possibly help, who encumbered himself with nothing that he could throw aside, who offered in every action, speech, and gesture the least possible resistance to the atmosphere, moral, social, or physical, in which he found himself. His manner to the Prince was deferential, without being marked, and he evidently wished to propitiate him.
"Thou art very pious, I hear," said thePrincess, addressing Mark in a tone of unmitigated contempt.
The boy only bowed.
"Is he dumb?" said the Princess, still with undisguised disdain.
"No," said the Prince quietly. "He can speak when he thinks that what he says will be well received."
"He is wise," said the Count.
"Well," said the Princess sharply, "my wishes count for nothing; of that we are well aware. But I do not want my children to be infected with the superstitions of the past, which still linger among the coarse and ignorant peasantry. I suppose, now, this peasant schoolmaster believes in a God and a hell, and in a heaven for such as he?" and she threw herself back with a light laugh.
"No, surely," said the Count blandly, "that were too gross, even for a peasant priest."
"Tell me, Herr Tutor," said the Princess; and now she threw a nameless charm into her manner as she addressed the boy, from whom she wished an answer; "tell me, dost thou believe in a heaven?"
"Yes, gracious Highness," said Mark.
"It has always struck me," said the Prince, with a philosophic air, "that we might leave the poor their distant heaven. Its existence cannot injure us. I have sometimes fancied that they might retort upon me: 'You have everything here that life can wish: we have nothing. You have dainty food, and fine clothes, and learning, and music, and all the fruition that your fastidious fancy craves: we are cold andhungry, and ignorant and miserable. Leave us our heaven! At least, if you do not believe in it, keep silence before us. Our belief does not trouble you; it takes nothing from the least of your pleasures; it is all we have.'"
"When the Prince begins to preach," said the Princess, with scarcely less contempt than she had shown for Mark, "I always leave the room."
The Count immediately rose and opened a small door leading to a boudoir. The Prince rose and bowed. The Princess swept to the ground before him in an elaborate curtsey, and, looking contemptuously, yet with a certain amused interest, at Mark, left the room.
The Prince resumed his seat, and, leaning back, looked from one to the other of hiscompanions. He was really thinking with amusement what a so strangely-assorted couple might be likely to say to each other; but the Count, misled by his desire to please the Prince, misunderstood him. He supposed that he wished that the conversation which the Princess had interrupted should be continued, and, sitting down, he began again.
"I suppose, Herr Tutor," he said, "you propose to train your pupils so that they shall be best fitted to mingle with the world in which they will be called upon to play an important part?"
The Prince motioned to Mark to sit, which he did, upon the edge of an embroidered couch.
"If the serene Highness," he said, "had wished for one to teach his childrenwho knew the great world and the cities he would not have sent for me."
"What do you teach them, then?"
"I tell them beautiful histories," said Mark, "of good people, and of love, and of God."
"It has been proved," said the Count, "that there is no God."
"Then there is still love," said the boy.
"Yes, there is still love," said the Count, with an amused glance at the Prince; "all the more that we have got rid of a cruel God."
The boy's face flushed.
"How can you dare say that?" he said.
"Why," said the Count, with a simulated warmth, "what is the God of you pious people but a cruel God? He who condemns the weak and the ignorant—theweak whom He has Himself made weak, and the ignorant whom He keeps in darkness—to an eternity of torture for a trivial and temporary, if not an unconscious, fault? What is that God but cruel who will not forgive till He has gratified His revenge upon His own Son? What is that God but cruel—— But I need not go on. The whole thing is nothing but a figment and a dream, hatched in the diseased fancies of half-starved monks dying by inches in caves and deserts, terrified by the ghastly visions of a ruined body and a disordered mind—men so stupid and so wicked that they could not discern the nature of the man whom they professed to take for their God—a man, apparently, one of those rare natures, in advance of their time, whom friends and enemies alike misconceive andthwart; and who die, as He died, helpless and defeated, with a despairing cry to a heedless or visionary God in whom they have believed in vain."
As the Count went on, a new and terrible phase of experience was passing through Mark's mind. As the brain consists of two parts, so the mind seems dual also. Thought seems at different times to consist of different phases, each of which can only see itself—of a faith that can see no doubt—of a doubt that can conceive of no certainty; one week exalted to the highest heaven, the next plunged into the lowest hell. For the first time in his life this latter phase was passing through Mark's mind. What had always looked to him as certain as the hills and fields, seemed, on a sudden, shrunken and vanished away.His mind felt emptied and vacant; he could not even think of God. It appeared even marvellous to him that anything could have filled this vast fathomless void, much less such a lovely and populous world as that which now seemed vanished as a morning mist. He tried to rouse his energies, to grasp at and to recover his accustomed thoughts, but he seemed fascinated; the eyes of the Count rested on him, as he thought, with an evil glance. He turned faint.
But the Prince came to his aid. He was looking across at the Count with a sort of lazy dislike; as one looks at a stuffed reptile or at a foul but caged bird.
"Thou art soon put down, little one," he said, with his kindly, lofty air. "Tell him all this is nothing to thee! That diseaseand distraction never created anything. That nothing lives without a germ of life. Tell the Count that thou art not careful to answer him—that it may be as he says. Tell him that even were it so—that He of whom he speaks died broken-hearted in that despairing cry to the Father who He thought had deserted Him—tell the Count thou art still with Him! Tell him that if His mission was misconceived and perverted, it was because His spirit and method was Divine! Tell the Count that in spite of failure and despair, nay, perchance—who knows?—because even of that despair, He has drawn all men to Him from that cross of His as He said. Tell the Count that He has ascended to His Father and to thy Father, and, alone among the personalities of the world'sstory, sits at the right hand of God! Tell him this, he will have nothing to reply."
And, as if to render reply impossible, the Prince rose and, calling to his spaniel, who came at his gesture from the sunshine in the window, he struck a small Indian gong upon the table, and the pages drawing back the curtains of the antechamber, he left the room.
The Count looked at the boy with a smile. Mark's face was flushed, his eyes sparkling and full of tears.
"Well, Herr Tutor," said the Count not unkindly, "dost thou say all that?"
"Yes," said the boy, "God helping me, I say all that!"
"Thou might'st do worse, Tutor," said the Count, "than follow the Prince."
And he too left the room.
Thearrival of the Princess very much increased the gaiety and activity of life within the palace. Every one became impressed with the idea that the one thing necessary was to entertain her. The actors set to work to prepare new plays, new spectacles; the musicians to compose new combinations of quaint notes; the poets new sonnets on strange and, if possible, new conceits. As the Princess was very difficult to please, and as it was almost impossible to conceive anything which appeared new to her jaded intellect, thedifficulty of the task caused any idea that promised novelty to be seized upon with a desperate determination. The most favourite one still continued to be the proposition that Mark should be induced, by fair means or foul, to take a part upon the stage. His own character—therôlewhich he instinctively played—was so absolutely original and fresh that the universal opinion was confident of the success of such a performance.
"By some means or other," said old Carricchio, "he must be got to act."
"You may do what you will with him," said the Signorina sadly; "he will die. He is too good to live. Like my little brother and the poor canary, he will die."
In pursuit, then, of this ingenious plan, the Princess was requested to honour withher presence a performance of a hitherto unknown character, to be given in the palace gardens. She at first declined, saying that she had seen everything that could be performed so often that she was sick of such things, and that each of their vaunted and promised novelties proved more stale and dull than its precursor. It was therefore necessary to let her know something of what was proposed; and no sooner did she understand that Mark was to be the centre round which the play turned, than she entered into the plot with the greatest zeal.
It is, perhaps, not strange that to such a woman Mark's character and personality offered a singular novelty and even charm. The thought of triumphing over this child-like innocence, of contrasting it with thelicence and riot which the play would offer, struck her jaded curiosity with a sense of delicious freshness, and she took an eager delight in the arrangement and contrivance of the scenes.
In expansion of the idea suggested by some of the wonderful theatres in Italy, where the open-air stage extended into real avenues and thickets, it was decided that the entire play should be represented in the palace gardens: and that, in fact, the audience should take part in the action of the drama. This, where the whole household was theatrical, and where the actors were trained in the Italian comedy, which left so much to theimprovisatore—to the individual taste and skill of the actor—was a scheme not difficult to realise.
The palace garden, which was verylarge, was disposed in terraces and hedges; it was planted with numerous thickets and groves, and, wherever the inequalities of the ground allowed it, with lofty banks of thick shrubs crowned with young trees, beneath which were arranged statues and fountains in the Italian manner. The hedges were cut into arcades and arches, giving free access to the retired lawns and shady nooks; and these arcades, and the lofty groves and terraces, gave a constant sense of mystery and expectation to the scene. The ample lawns and open spaces afforded more than one suitable stage, upon which the most important scenes of a play might be performed.
Beneath one of the highest and most important banks, which stretched in a perfectly straight line across the garden, plantedthickly with flowering shrubs and fringed at the top with a long line of young trees, whose delicate foliage was distinct against the sky, was placed the largest of the fountains. It was copied from that in the Piazza Santa Maria in Transtevere in Rome, and was ornamented with great shells, fish, and Tritons. On either side of the fountain, and leading to the terrace at the back, were flights of marble steps, with wide-stretching stone bases upon either side towering above the grass. In front of the fountain and of the steps, beyond a belt of greensward, were long hedges planted in parallel rows, and connected in arches and arcades, crossing and re-crossing each other in an intricate maze, so that a large company, wandering through their paths, might suddenly appear anddisappear. Beyond the hedges the lawn stretched out again, broken by flowerbeds and statues, and fringed by masses of foliage and lofty limes. A sound of falling water was heard on all sides; and, by mysterious contrivance of concealed mechanism, flute and harp music sounded from the depths of the bosky groves.
Mark knew little of what was going on. He occupied himself mostly with his young pupils; but the conversation he had had with the Princess Isoline had troubled his mind, and a sense of perplexity and of approaching evil weighed upon his spirits and affected his health. He, who had never known sickness in his peasant life, now, when confined to a life so unnatural and artificial, so out of harmonywith his mind and soul, became listless and weak in body, and haunted by fitful terrors and failings of consciousness. He knew that some extraordinary preparations were being made; but he was not spoken to upon the subject, and paid little attention to what was going on. Indeed, had he been in the least of a suspicious nature, the entire absence of solicitation or interference might have led him to suspect some secret machination against his simplicity and peace, some contrived treachery at work; but no such idea crossed his mind, he occupied himself with his own melancholy thoughts and with the histories and parables which he related to his pupils.
On the morning of the day fixed for the performance, then, things being in this condition, Mark rose early. He had beeninformed that it was necessary that he should wear his best court-suit, which we have seen was of black silk with white bands and ruffles. He gave his pupils a short lesson, but their thoughts were so much occupied by the expectation of the coming festivity that he soon released them and wandered out into the gardens alone. The performance of the play had been fixed for noon.
The day was bright and serene. The gardens were brilliant with colour and sweet with the perfume of flowers and herbs. Strains of mysterious harmony from secret music startled the wanderer along the paths.
Mark strayed listlessly through the more distant groves. He was distressed and dissatisfied with himself. His spirit seemed to have lost its happy elasticity, his mindits active joyousness. The things which formerly delighted him no longer seemed to please, even the loveliness of nature was unable to arouse him. He found himself envying those others who took so much real delight, or seemed to him to do so, in fantastic and frivolous music and jest and comic sport. He began to wonder what this new surprising play—these elaborately prepared harmonies—these swells and runs and shakes—might prove to be. Then he hated himself for this envy—for this curiosity. He wished to return to his old innocence—his old simplicity.
But he felt that this could never be. As the Princess had told him, whatever in after years he might become, never would he taste this delight of his child's nature again. He was inexpressibly sad and depressed.
As he wandered on, not knowing where he went, and growing almost stupid, and indifferent even to pain, he found himself suddenly surrounded by a throng of dancing and laughing girls. It was easy, in this magic garden, to steal unobserved upon any one amid the bosky hedges and arcades; but to surprise one so abstracted as the dreamy and listless boy required no effort at all. With hands clasped and mocking laughter they surrounded the unhappy Mark. They were masqued, with delicate bits of fringed silk across the eyes, but had they not been so he was too confused to have recognised them. He tried in vain to escape. Then he was lifted from the ground by a score of hands and borne rapidly away.
The stories of swan-maidens and wingedfairies of his old histories crossed his mind, and he seemed to be flying through the air; suddenly this strange flight came to an end; he was on his feet again, and, as he looked confusedly around, he found that he was alone.
He was standing on a circular space of lawn, surrounded by the lofty wood. In the centre was an antique statue of a faun playing upon a flute. He seemed to recognise the scene, but could not in his confusion recall in what part of the vast garden it lay.
As he stood, lost in wonder and expectation, a fairy-like figure was suddenly present before him, from whence coming he could not tell. The slim and delicate form was dressed in a gossamer robe, through which the lovely limbs might beseen. She held a light masque in her hand, and laughed at him with her dancing eyes and rosy mouth. It was the little Princess, his pupil.
Even now no thought of plot or treachery entered the boy's mind; he gazed at her in wondering amaze.
"You must come with me," said the girl-princess, holding out her hand; "I am sent to fetch you to the under world."
Behind them as they stood, and facing the statue of the faun, was a cave or hollow in the wood, half concealed by the pendant tendrils of creeping and flowering plants. It seemed the opening of a subterranean passage. The child pushed aside the hanging blossoms and drew Mark, still dazed and unresisting, after her. They went down into the dark cave.
* * * * *
Meanwhile from early dawn the palace had been noisy with pattering feet. For its bizarre population was augmented from many sources, and the great performance of the day taxed the exertions of all. As the morning advanced visitors began to arrive, and were marshalled to certain parts of the gardens where positions were allotted them, and refreshments served in tents. They were mostly masqued. Then strange groups began to form themselves before the garden front of the palace, and on the terraces. These were all masqued, and dressed in variety of incongruous and fantastic costumes, for though the play was supposed to be classical, yet the necessity of entertaining the Princess with somethingstartling and lively was more exacting than artistic congruity. As we have seen, the Prince had always inclined more to the fairy and masqued comedy than to the serious opera, and on this occasion the result was more original and fantastic than had ever before been achieved.
As the morning went on, there gradually arranged itself, as if by fortuitous incident, as strange a medley of fairy mediæval legend and of classic lore as eye ever looked upon. As the Prince and Princess, surrounded by their principal guests, all masqued and attired in every shade of colour and diversity of form, stood upon the steps before the palace, the wide gardens seemed full of groups equally varied and equally brilliant with their own. From behind the green screens of the hedges, and from beneaththe arcades, figures were constantly emerging and passing again out of sight, apparently accidentally, but in fact with a carefully-devised plan. Strains of delicate music filled the air.
Then a group of girls in misty drapery, and masqued across the eyes, the same indeed that had carried off Mark, appeared suddenly before the princely group. They had discovered in the deepest dell of their native mountain a deserted babe—the offspring doubtless of the loves of some wandering god. They were become its nurses, and fed it upon sacred honey and consecrated bread. Of immortal birth themselves, and untouched by the passing years, the boy became, as he grew up, the plaything, and finally the beloved of his beautiful friends. But the boy himself isindifferent to their attractions, and careless or averse to their caresses. He is often lost to them, and wanders in the mountain fastnesses with the fawns and kids.
All this and more was told in action, in song, and recitative, upon the palace lawns before this strange audience, themselves partly actors in the pastoral drama. Rural dances, and games and sacrifices were presented with delicately-conceived grouping and pictorial effect. Then the main action of the drama developed itself. The most lovely of the nymphs, the queen and leader of the rest, inspires a devoted passion in the heart of the priest of Apollo, before whose altar they offer sacrifice, and listen for guiding and response. She rejects his love with cruel contempt, pining always for the coy and errant boy-god, who thinks ofnothing but the distant mountain summits and the divine whispers of the rustling woods. The priest, insulted and enraged, invokes the aid of his divinity, and a change comes over the gay and magic scene. A terrible pestilence strikes down the inhabitants of these sylvan lawns, and gloomy funerals, and the pathetic strains of dirges take the place of dances and lively songs.
The terrified people throw themselves before the altar of the incensed Apollo, and the god speaks again. His anger can be appeased only by the sacrifice of the contemptuous nymph who has insulted his priest, or of some one who is willing to perish in her place. Proclamation is made across the sunny lawns, inviting a victim who will earn the wreath of self-sacrificeand of immortal consciousness of a great deed, but there is no response.
The fatal day draws on; the altar of sacrifice is prepared; but there spreads a rumour among the crowd—fanned probably by hope—that at the last moment a god will interfere. Some even speak of the wandering boy, if he could only be found. Surely he—so removed from earthly and selfish loves, so strange in his simplicity, in his purity—surely he would lay down his guileless life without a pang. Could he only be found! or would he appear!
The herald's voice had died away for the third time amid a fanfare of trumpets. At the foot of the steps of the long terrace, by the Roman fountain, a delicate and lovely form stood on the grassy verge before the altar, by the leaping and rushingwater's side; a little to the left, whence the road from Hades was supposed to come, stood the divine messenger, the lofty herald—clad in white, with a white wand; behind the altar stood the wretched priest, on whom the fearful task devolved, the passion of terror, of pity, and of love, traced upon his face; all sound of music had died away; a hush as of death itself fell upon the expectant crowd; from green arch and trellised walk the throng of masques, actors and spectators alike, pressed forward upon the lawn before the altar.... The priest tore the fillet from his brow and threw down his knife.