Failingwith the old Arlecchino, the Prince determined to try his own influence with the girl; but he had no intention of acting in a blundering and inartistic manner. He was too good an artist not to prepare the way. Having failed with Carricchio, he resolved to try the Maestro once more.
He sent for the old man. "Maestro," he said, "I regret exceedingly what has happened. I do not wish to make a disturbance immediately after coming to Court after so long an absence. It would not be well. But we shall soon put things right.Meanwhile, if you like to travel for a few months you can do so. There is no necessity for it that I know of, but it will be an entertainment for you, and you will gather ideas for your music, and, no doubt, fame also. If the Signorina remains here, you shall have letters of credit on Paris or any other city. As you will not be dependent on your music, it probably will be a great success. As the Scripture says, 'To him that hath shall be given.' When you are tired of wandering you can return. But Tina remains here—you understand."
"I have already tried to persuade her, Highness," said the old man.
"Well, you must try again. You shall sup with her to-night, as you are neither of you wanted at the opera. I will ordersupper for you inla petite Sallebeyond thesalon. When I return at night I shall find everything arranged."
The Prince himself went to the opera. He did not care to be seen, as he was supposed to have received a slight, but he had nothing else to do, and was interested in the performance, which was a new opera by Metastasio. Indeed, he was restless, and wanted diversion of any kind.
He sat well back in his box, across the front of which the delicate lace curtains were partly drawn. Karl theJager, and the valet who attended, had left the box and retired to their own gallery, where they criticised the play and the music with more interest than did their master. The Prince lay back in his chair, watching the piece listlessly through the gauzy screen,and listening half heedlessly to the music—the wonderful music of Pergolesi.
The fairy world of song and harmony, peopled by fantastic and impossible creatures who exist only for the sake of the melodies which give them birth, was not devoid of powerful and pathetic phases of passion and of character; but what made its lesson particularly adapted to the Prince's frame of mind, and gradually aroused his languid interest, was the subordination of passion and character to the nicest art. The deepest sorrow warbled to exquisite airs; passion, despairing and bewildered, flinging itself as an evil thing across the devious paths of Romance, yet never for a second forgetful of the nicest harmony or capable of a jarring note. This ideal musical world—bizarre andrococo as, in some respects, it was—seemed to the Prince in some sort an allegory, or even parody, on the art-life he had set himself to create or to perfect. He thought he saw that even its faults were instinct with, and revealed, the secret of which he was in search. Faultiness and feebleness, folly and littleness, seemed restrained, corrected, transformed, when presented in solemn, noble, and pure melodies. Everything in this parody of life was ruled by art just as, in the so-called reality, he had wished. The lesson was not altogether a noble one. Passion, ennobled by art, lost its fatal, repellent aspect, and became perfect as an artistic whole. Here the poison worked readily in the Prince's mind. To sacrifice the least portion of this art-life to any narrow illiterate scruples was to sinagainst its perfection, without which the whole structure were worthless. Better, far better, throw the entire scheme to the winds. Imperfect art is worse than none at all. He had already forgotten, if he had ever listened to it, Carricchio's warning against unreal and loveless art.
Moreover, as the play went on, and the fantastic adventures and fortunes of its strange actors gradually won the Prince's attention and attracted his interest, through the gauzy veil of the curtains and the haze of delicious melody, his desire was excited and he longed to play out his own part on a real stage, and with tangible, no longer ideal, delights and success. Why did he sit there gazing at a mere show of life, when life itself, in a form strangely attractive and prepared—life which he himselfhad in some sort formed and created—awaited him, with parts and scenes, ready for the playing, compared to which all the glamour of the piece before him was a mere dream-shade? Fortune had been kind to him; or rather, he thought, his patient loyalty to art had wrought the usual result. As he had followed his steadfast course, nature, chance, the confusions and spite of men, had all tended to co-operate with him, had each supplied a thread of gold to perfect his brilliant woof of coloured existence. The moment seemed at hand; let him no longer dally with shadows, but play his own part, compared with which the piece before him was poor and tame.
* * * * *
"La petite Salle," as the Prince had called it—in which supper had been laidfor Tina and the Maestro—was situated at the end of a splendid "apartement," which contained thesalonand the other reception-rooms of theHôtel. It communicated with other rooms and private staircases, and was therefore peculiarly suitable for purposes of retirement. It was decorated, with the picturesque daintiness of the French Court, in panels painted in imitation of Watteau, festooned with silk, embroidered with flowers. One or two cabinets supporting plate, and chairs richly embroidered in vari-coloured silk, completed the furniture. The supper was served on a small round table, with a costly service of china and Venetian glass.
Tina had accepted the invitation with pleasure. She had feared that this evening, when the work of another was being performedat the Imperial Theatre, to the exclusion of his great masterpiece, would have been a time of great depression with the Maestro, and she resolved to endeavour to cheer him. She had dressed herself with the greatest care, and without thought of cost. She had never looked so charming—every day seemed to mature her beauty. The supper was all that could have been expected or wished; nevertheless the Maestro was distrait and even sulky. Tina lavished her bewitching wiles and enchantments upon him in vain.
After the first course or two, which, it must be admitted, were served by the attendants in a somewhat perfunctory manner, the Maestro dismissed the servants, saying that the Signorina and he would prefer waiting upon themselves: dumbwaiters, containing wines and other accessories, were placed by the table's side, and the servants left the room.
Still the Maestro seemed ill at ease. Tina, finding that her sallies were received with a morose indifference, relapsed into silence, and sat furtively glancing at her companion, with a pouting, disconsolate air which, it might have been thought, would have been found irresistible even by an ascetic.
At last the Maestro, after several futile attempts, and with an awkward and embarrassed air, began:
"I have been thinking, Signora," he said, "over my future plans, and I have resolved not to try to get my music performed, at present at any rate, in any great city. I am old and want rest. I proposeto travel for a few months. It will therefore not be necessary to take you from Vienna."
His manner was so constrained, and his resolution so unexpected, that the girl looked at him with perplexity. It was, of course, impossible for her, in her ignorance, to perceive that what was troubling the Maestro was the difficulty of concealing from himself that he had accepted a bribe to desert his art and his friend.
"Maestro," she said at last, "what can you mean?—you to whom it has been given to achieve such a success? How can you talk of rest? What rest can be more perfect than to listen to your own wonderful music? To see, to feel, the power of your glorious art over others, over yourself?"
The Maestro hesitated and floundered worse than before. He was, as he had said himself, when under the influence of as noble feeling as he was capable of, a bad artist; but he had sufficient of the true instinct to be conscious of his bad work. He was ashamed of himself and of hisfainéantise. He made a bungling business of it all round.
He had, before the Prince had made his offer,begun to regret that in a moment of irritation he had been so precipitate in insisting upon leaving Vienna; but now that an offer of freedom, of a sojourn in Paris, of independent means, was made him, the proposal was too attractive to be declined. He felt, beside, that there was so much truth in the Prince's bitter phrase—when he was independent of his music,he felt certain that his music would be a great success.
"It will be better so, Faustina," he said at last; "you will be happier here. You will have plenty to sing, plenty to teach you. The Prince will be pleased."
She was still looking at him wonderingly, but a smile was slowly growing in her eyes. She judged him by a nature as generous and unselfish as his was paltry and mean.
"You are saying this," she said, "for my sake. You fear that I shall suffer hardship and want. You sacrifice yourself—more than yourself—for me."
This turn in the conversation completed the vexation of the Maestro. When you are doing a particularly mean thing, nothing is more aggravating than to have noble and generous motives imputed to you;and to have a very pretty woman offer herself to you, unreservedly, when motives of paltry selfishness render the offer unacceptable, is enough to provoke any man.
The old man lost his temper completely.
"Faustina," he said, "you are a fool. I have told you already that I intend to travel, without thinking of work or of pay. You must stay here. I shall not want you. You have everything here you can wish. The Prince is your lover. You have a brilliant future before you. Don't let me have any more trouble about you."
Still the girl could not believe that her friend and teacher meant to cast her off. She was looking at him wonderingly and sadly.
"Maestro," she said, "you are not well. You are cross and tired; we will not speakof this any more to-night. This worry has made you ill. To-morrow you will see quite differently. You can never leave your art—and Tina."
This feminine persistency, as it seemed to him—this leaving a discussion open which it was absolutely necessary should be closed that night—was too much for the Maestro.
"I leave Vienna," he said brutally, "the day after to-morrow. I suppose that you will not insist on following me uninvited. If so, I shall know what to do."
This tone and look revealed to the girl, at last, that she was cast off and discarded by the only man for whom she really cared. She threw herself on her knees beside his chair, and caught his hand.
"Maestro," she said passionately, "youwill not be so cruel! You will not leave me! What can I do? How can I live, without you? I cannot sing without you. I am your child. You took me out of the gutter; you taught me all I know; you made me all I am. I will do anything you tell me. I will not trouble you. I will not speak even! I care for no one except for you. I know you better, I can care for you, can serve you better, than they all. You will not be so cruel! You will not send me away from you."
The more passionately she spoke, the more rapid and fervent her utterance, the more fretful and irritated did the old man become. He pushed her roughly from him.
"Tina," he said again, "you are a fool. Get up from your knees. I don't want any of this stage-acting here."
He rose himself, and began to wander about the room, muttering and grumbling.
As he pushed her rudely from him, the girl rose and, retreating some steps from the table, gazed at him with a dazed, wondering look, as of one before whose eyes some strange unaccountable thing was happening.
She was standing, in her brilliant beauty and in her delicate and fantastic dress, her hands clasped before her. The jewels on her fingers and on her breast paled before the solemn glow of her wonderful eyes, which were dry, only from the intensity of her thought.
"No," she said at last, as it would seem in answer to some unspoken question. "No. There is nothing strange in this.A woman's heart is easily won. I am not the first, by many, who has found that out, too late."
It might have seemed impossible to one easily stirred, easily wrought upon by a woman's beauty—it would surely have seemed impossible to such a one that any could gaze on a sight like this and harbour a selfish thought; but the old man was perfectly unmoved.
"It is always the way," he said peevishly, "always the way with women; now we shall have a scene—tears—entreaties. I shall be called all manner of hard names for giving sensible advice."
And he turned his back upon the girl, and stood sullenly, gazing apparently upon one of the painted panels of the wall.
For about a minute there was a terriblepause, then the curtains that veiled thesalonwere drawn forcibly back, and the groom of the chambers, who was a Frenchman, announced suddenly—
"Monseigneur le Prince."
ThePrince came forward smiling. The Maestro made a gesture of inexpressible relief. He shuffled off toward the still opened curtain, and, turning as he reached it, he bowed to the ground before his patron and his pupil, and disappeared through the opening as the servant let the curtain drop. We shall not care, I think, to see him again.
Faustina looked still more scared and bewildered than before at this sudden change of actors and of parts. She would gladly have left the room but she wasincapable of anything of the kind—besides, where should she go? The scene seemed to swim before her eyes, and the lights to flicker. She sank down on her chair again.
The Prince had never looked so well. He was flushed with excitement, and the habitualinsoucianceof his manner had given place to a reality and earnestness of purpose which rendered eloquent his every gesture and look. He was exquisitely dressed in silk, embroidered with flowers. The priceless lace at his wrists and throat accommodated itself, with a delicate fulness, to the soft outline of his dress and figure. His expression was full of kindliness and protection, but of kindliness delicate and refined. The girl's eyes were fascinated in spite of herself.
"Have you quarrelled with the Maestro, Tina?" said the Prince. "He seemed in a marvellous hurry to be gone."
Faustina made two or three ineffectual attempts to speak before she could find her voice. She burst into tears.
"He is cruel! cruel!" she said. "He does not love me. He will not have me any longer. He throws me away."
"Poor child!" said the Prince, "you will not be deserted. I am your friend; we are all your friends. The Maestro even will come back to you. He is cross and angry. When he finds how lost he is without you and your lovely voice, he will come back to you; you and he will carry all before you again."
"Speak to him, Highness!" cried the girl passionately. "You are kind andgood to all—kinder than any one to me. Speak to him! do not let him go without me! He cannot live without his music, and no one surely can know his music so well as I, whom he has taught!"
She looked so indescribably attractive in her tears and her distress that the Prince wondered at the sight. "Let her go, indeed!"
"Tina," he said very kindly, "I fear that can hardly be. The Maestro is only going for a time. There is, in fact, no need that he should go at all. It is his own wish, his own wish, Tina. He is too old to make his way among strangers, and will soon come back. But you we cannot spare. You are too much a favourite with us all. We are too much accustomed to you: every one would missyou—the Princess and all; you must stay with us."
"I cannot stay," said the girl, looking earnestly and beseechingly at the Prince. "I want to go with him."
The Prince hesitated for a moment. In an instantaneous flash of thought the two paths lay open before him, plain and clear to be seen. Carricchio's warning struck him again with renewed force. The more terrible presage of Mark's death cast itself, ghostlike, before his steps. He could plead no excuse of self-deception: he saw the beauty and the danger of the way which lay before him on either hand. He hesitated for a moment, then he deliberately chose the lower path.
"Tina," he said, "I cannot spare you; you must not go. You are mine—I loveyou; you belong to me;" and he stepped forward, as if to take her in his arms.
The girl sprang to her feet. She drew herself up to her full height, and her splendid eyes, expanded to their full orbit, flashed upon the Prince with a look of astonishment and reproach. With the entire power of her trained voice, which, magnificent as it was, could still but imperfectly render the reality of remonstrance and pathetic regret, she uttered but one word—"Prince!"
The cadence of her voice, trembling in the passionate intensity of musical tone, the whole power of her woman's nature, exerted to its full in expostulation and reproach—the magnetic force of her intense consciousness—struck upon the conscience and cultured taste of the Prince withcrushing effect. He lost the perfectly serene tone of pose and demeanour which distinguished him and became him so well. He aged perceptibly, incredible as it may seem, ten years. The fatal step which he had taken was revealed to him in a moment as in a flash of light, with all the stain and taint with which it had tarnished the fair dream of finished art which he had conceived it possible to perfect. He was utterly demoralised and crushed. Mark's death was nothing to this. That had been a terrible mistake, but his part in it had been indirect, and his motive, at least so he flattered himself, comparatively high; but this action, so entirely his own, revealed to him, in its vulgar commonplaceness, by the glorious perfection of the girl's action and tone, withered him with a sense ofirreparable failure and disgrace. He made one or two ineffectual attempts to rally; it was impossible—there was nothing for him but to leave the room.
Faustina was unconscious of his going. She found herself left alone. The situation was still not without its difficulties. She was alone, unattended by servants, she knew not where to go, how to leave theHôtel. She lay for some time in a sort of swoon; then she rose and wandered from the room.
The only means of exit with which she was acquainted was through the curtains into thesalon. She parted them and went out, hardly knowing what she did.
The vastsalonwas but dimly lighted, and no servants were to be seen; the whole house seemed silent and deserted—moreespecially these state apartments. She passed slowly and with faltering steps down the slippery floor of thesalon, with its dimly-lighted candelabra of massive silver and its half-seen portraits, and, opening the great door at the opposite end, found herself in an antechamber which communicated with a grand staircase, both ascending and descending. To descend was evidently useless—she could not go out into the streets of Vienna alone at night and in her fanciful dress. She went up the wide staircase in the hope of finding some female domestics who would help her; as she reached the next flight the sound of music, subdued and solemn, fell upon her ear. She knew enough of German music to know that it was the tune of a hymn.
The door of the room from which the sound seemed to come stood partly open. She went in.
Before an harpsichord, with her hand carelessly passing over the keys, and her head turned at the sound of footsteps, stood the Princess Isoline. The light of a branched candelabra fell full upon her stately figure, revealing the compassionate, lofty expression of her beautiful face. The girl crossed the room towards her and fell on her knees at her feet.
"Child," said the Princess, "what is it? Why are you here?"
"I cannot tell," said the girl; and now at last she found it possible to weep. "I do not know what has happened. The Maestro has forsaken me, and I have insulted the Prince."
Gradually, in a broken way, she told her story, kneeling by the Princess, who stood serenely, her fingers still wandering over the harpsichord keys, her left hand caressing the girl's hair and cheek.
"He was a wonderful child," said the Princess at last, more to herself than to Faustina, for as she spoke she played again the simple notes of the Lutheran hymn. "He was truly a wonderful child. A very Christ-child, it seems to me, in his simple life and sudden death; for, though what he did was little, yet the lives of all of us seem different for his life—changed since his death. As for me, since his life crossed my path I have seen more, it seems to me, of the mercy of God and of Christ's working in paths and among lives where I never thought to look for it before."
Faustina did not reply, and the Princess played several bars of the hymn before she spoke again.
"Do you not see," she said at last, "the blessing it has been also to my brother the Prince?—for the desire that he felt, surely a noble one, to refine the life of art by the sacred touch of religion—the effort that he made, though it seemed a failure, and was made—it may be, I dare not judge him—blindly, and in a mistaken fashion; yet this effort has to-night proved his own salvation, through you."
She stopped, and again the notes of the hymn sounded through the room.
"Carricchio was right," she went on, "when he told the Prince that you alone of all of us had solved the riddle, for on you alone has art exercised its supreme,its magic touch, in drawing out and developing the emotions, the powers of the soul. You alone possessed the perfect gift of nature—the untainted well-spring of natural life—which assimilated Mark's spirit with your spirit, and reproduced his life within your own."
Faustina dropped the Princess's hand, which she had taken, and bent her head still lower, as if shrinking from her kindly praise.
"The Prince also had something of this gift, and, in so far as he had, he built up by his own action what, in his supreme need, saved him from his lower self. I have come to see that the world's virtues, which, in my self-righteous isolation, I despised, are often, as I blindly said to the boy, nearer Christ's than my vaunted ones;that the world-spirit is often the Christ-spirit, and that, when we begin to see that His footsteps may be traced in paths where we little expect to find them, we shall no longer dare to talk of the secular life. Your little brother that died was not without his work, and the canary even was the type of a nobler life, even as Mark's death was the type of a nobler death. In strange and unlooked-for ways the mission of sacrifice and love fulfils itself, and, living in the full light of its influence, we can never realise the blessing we have derived, the changed aspect of the race we have inherited, from the Cross of Christ."
Thenext evening there was given, at the Imperial Palace, a ball and supper, to which none butla haute noblessewere invited. The dancing began with a brilliant Polonaise, which, headed by the Empress-Queen and her husband, passed through the rooms in stately procession, in singular and picturesque contrast and harmony with another faded and more solemn procession and array of figures in antique armour and dainty ruffs and doublets, and gold chains and princely mantles, the ancestral portraits who watched theformal slow dance-movement from the walls.
After the Polonaise came the supper, which was somewhat prolonged. The supper over, a minuet was danced, and afterward, the company being now happy and cheerful, and being, moreover, of sufficiently high and similar rank to dispense with somewhat of the rigid court etiquette, began to wander through the rooms in an informal manner, and to arrangecontre-dansesamong themselves.
In those days thecontre-dansehad not hardened itself into the quadrille. It was danced, not in fours, but in sets of varying numbers, and of characters and figures mostly undefined.
In one of the great halls, recently erected by the Emperor-architect, Charles VI.,in a different taste from the older rooms, with marble floors and ceiling, and lined with mirrors, a very large set, composed of guests of the highest rank, was being watched by no inconsiderable number of their companions.
It is difficult to conceive a more magnificent or fascinating sight, reflected and multiplied as it was by the mirrors on the walls.
The Princess von Isenberg-Wertheim was dancing with a young noble, a prince of the House of Colleredo, a very handsome, but gay and reckless, young man. The dance was drawing to a close, the musicians, playing one of the last figures,La Pastorelle, to a very delicate and fine movement, to which the dancers were devoting their utmost, closest attention and skill.
As the Princess was standing by her partner, awaiting their turn to go down the dance, a slight movement caused her to turn her head, and she found the Count, her friend, standing close to her.
"I am sorry to interrupt, Princess," he said, in a low voice, "but I fear something serious has happened to the Prince. He cannot be found."
The Princess turned very pale. She caught her breath for a moment, then she said, in the same tone, "Where is Karl, theJager?"
"I do not know," replied the Count. "I never thought of him."
"Then he is not here," said the Princess, with a relieved air. "If Karl is with him the Prince is safe."
The Count made a very slight movementof his shoulders, but the Princess turned serenely to the young man.
"We will finish the figure, Monseigneur," she said graciously; "then, perhaps, you will excuse me."
"Nothing has happened to the Prince, believe me," said the young man kindly, as they moved down the room. "He has doubtless gone on some private expedition with his servant. He probably forgot to leave a message, and will return to-morrow."
The Princess was so reassured, apparently, by these reflections that she remained for the final figure of the dance. Then she left the palace, and, declining the Count's company, drove to herHôtelalone.
She was more strangely moved than she could have explained to herself. She was, indeed, frightened and perplexed byher own feelings. She felt herself influenced by an hitherto unrecognised power, and, as it were, driven onwards by an overpowering impulse, not her own.
Returning, as she did, at an unexpected hour, her women were not in waiting for her, and, leaving the servants who had accompanied her from the palace in the hall of theHôtel, she wandered up the great staircase alone. The corridors and rooms were dimly lighted, and a perfect stillness reigned through the house.
The Princess ascended slowly towards her own apartment, where she expected to find some, at least, of her dressers, and in so doing, in a dimly-lighted corridor, she passed the rooms allotted to her children. The thought of them was not, indeed, in her mind when, as she passed a door, shefancied that she heard a suppressed, continued crying, as of children in distress. Still more moved and troubled by this faint pathetic sound she opened the door and went in. The room was an antechamber, and both it and the apartment beyond were dark. The Princess procured a small lamp from the corridor and entered the suite of rooms.
In the bedchamber beyond the antechamber she found the children, both sitting up in one bed, clasped in each other's arms, and crying quietly. The little boy had evidently come for shelter and comfort to his sister's bed.
"What is the matter, children?" said the Princess, in a tone which seemed to the little ones strangely soft and kind. "Why are you not asleep?"
The children had ceased crying, and were looking at her wonderingly as she stood in her jewels and ball-dress, a brilliant scarf of Indian work hanging from her arm, the lamp in her hand. They hardly knew whether it was their mother, whom they saw so seldom, or some serene ethereal visitant, who resembled her in face and form.
The little Princess, however, with the self-possession of her class, apparently left this point undecided, and began in her quiet, stately little way to explain.
"It was dark," she said, "and we were asleep, Fritz and I, and we both dreamed the same dream. We thought that we were walking in a beautiful garden, where there were trees, and flowers, and butterflies, and wide cascades of water, in whichrainbows were shining; and while we were playing there, and were very happy chasing the butterflies, the Herr Tutor, who was an angel, and who went to heaven, came and took us by the hand; and, when we saw his face, we knew that he is an angel now; and he led us through the garden, and talked to us of many things—of God, and of angels, and of heaven—just as he used to do. But I saw that, though he talked so pleasantly, he was leading us out of this pleasant garden, and the flowers grew dim, and the butterflies flew away, and the sky became very dark. And he led us quite out of the garden into a burial-ground, where there were tombs, and open graves, and crosses, and tall dark trees that bore no flower; and the Herr Tutor told us not to be afraid, and led us on through thegraves without speaking any more. He led us into the midst of the burial-ground, and in the midst of the burial-ground there was a Calvary, and at the foot of the Calvary there was a bier. And on the bier we saw you and papa lying quite straight and still, and we thought that you were dead. And the Herr Tutor vanished away; and we were so frightened that we cried. And we knelt side by side, and prayed to the Christ that He would come down. And the Christ came down from the cross, and came to the bier, and touched it, and you and papa stood up beautiful and smiling, and came towards us with outstretched hands, and the Christ vanished away. And we were so glad that we awoke; and it was dark, and there was no Christ, and no Herr Tutor, who is anangel, and no papa, and no one to tell us what to do or where to go."
As the little Princess ceased some servants came in, with whispered explanations and apologies. The Princess went to her own room. She had not known what to say to the child; indeed, she hardly knew what had passed. She allowed herself to be undressed, and lay down.
But, in the deep silence of the hours that preceded the dawn, an overpowering restlessness took possession of her. A sense of strange forces and influences, to which she was utterly unaccustomed, seemed present to her spirit: a crowd of fair and heavenly existences, which seemed to follow on the steps of that singular boy who had first attracted her wearied fancy,the Signorina's singing, which had stamped this impression upon her mind, the strange tenderness she had been conscious of, the renewed sense of her husband's grace and beauty, his alarming absence, her children's mystical dream. A new world seemed to open to her. She felt how poor and bare her life had been, how deserted by these gracious creatures of the imagination, how unblessed by the purest, the truest art—the art of pathos and of love.
With the streaks of dawn that stole into the chamber she was conscious of an irrepressible desire that took possession of her to rise and go forth. An irresistible power seemed to draw her to follow: she rose, and, dressing herself in such clothes as were at hand, she went out.
The house itself was quite still, but faintly in the distance might be heard the sound of a bell. In so religious a Court as that of Vienna there were private chapels attached to most of the houses of the nobility, and there was one attached to a neighbouring palace, to which there was a private communication with theHôteltaken by the Prince.
Following the sound of the bell the Princess traversed several passages, and reached at last a staircase, down which she turned. As she reached the first landing two women came out from an open door. They started at the sight of the Princess. They were the Princess Isoline and Faustina.
"Is it you, Princess?" said the former. "What has called you up so early?"
"Are you going to the chapel, Isoline?" said the Princess. "May I come with you?"
The three ladies entered the chapel by a private door, which led them to a pew behind the stalls. Upon the original Gothic stone-work and tracery of the chapel, which was very old, had been introduced rococo work in mahogany and brass, angels and trumpets and scrolls. The stalls and organs were covered with filigree work of this description, the windows filled with paintings in the same florid and incongruous taste. There were few persons in the chapel, most of them being ladies from the adjoining palaces, together with a few musicians, for the musical part of the service was carefullyperformed by a large and well-paid staff.
Two of the ladies were Protestant, the third, Faustina, a Catholic of a very undeveloped type; but the music of the Mass spoke a mysterious language, recognisable to hearts of every creed.
Before the altar, laden with gilded plate and lighted with candles in silver sconces, the priest said Mass. Above him, in the window, painted in a lovely Italian landscape full of figures, with towns and castles and mountain ranges and market-people with horses and cattle, were represented, in careful and minute painting, the three Marys before the empty tomb.
"The City of the Sunlight," sang the choir, in an elaborate anthem, with an allegro movement of the tenors that spokeof sunshine amid the grass and flowers and flashing sea, of the breezy south wind upon rippling water and golden hair; and after them the bass recitative, with a positive assurance that knew no doubt, asserted "The gates—the gates of it are many—many," which the tenors and altos, with a sudden inspiration, interpreted, "God's purposes fulfilled—fulfilled in many ways;" and the whole choir, in a minor key, as with hushed and awe-struck voices, completed the theme, "But the end is union in the heart—the heart of the Crucifix; in the City—the City of the Saints."
* * * * *
On her return from the chapel a note from the Prince was put into the Princess's hand. It merely stated that he was gone to Hernhuth to the Count Zinzendorf. Ithad been written at a tavern in the environs of the city, after his sudden determination had been formed the day before, and had been entrusted to a servant of the inn to deliver. He had arrived at theHôtelafter the Princess had left, and, on asking for her Highness, had been told by a careless porter that she was at the Palace. Wandering about the Palace courts late at night he had been arrested as a suspicious person, and kept prisoner till the morning.
In course of time (posts were slow in those days) the Princess received a long letter from her husband, giving an account of Hernhuth, and of his conversations with the Count, and concluding with these words:—
"From all this you will, doubtless, concludethat Hernhuth does not suit me very well, and that the Count and I do not always agree. It would be more after Isoline's taste. I like the children's dream, as you tell it, best. We have been dead, and laid upon a bier; but we will, please God, live hereafter for the children and the Christ."
THE END.
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