The Princess sat near the speaker, her head supported on her arm, looking sorrowfully before her.
"My beloved Princess does not hear me speak in this way for the first time," continued the Lord High Steward. "I have often felt anxious about the dangers which a high-flown spirit and active fancy prepare for you, the cradle gift of an envious fairy, who has made your Highness too brilliant and attractive. It is owing to these brilliant gifts that you have not the same aristocratic nature as your illustrious brother, the Hereditary Prince. There is too lively a desire in you to make yourself appreciated, and to influence others. One can leave your brother with full confidence to his own good nature. Every attempt to persuade the soul of the much-tormented child has come to naught. But you, that delicate artistic work of nature which now gazes at me with those open eyes, I have endeavored constantly to guard from an over-refined coquetry of sentiment. I am now the severe admonisher to high duties, because I anticipate the dangers which this love of conquest in your soul will bring upon yourself and others."
"I hear a severe reproof in loving words," replied the Princess, with composure. "I should marry again in order to become distinguished."
"My dear Highness, I wish that you may obtain this great aim as the wife of a husband who is not unworthy of your devotion. Only in this way can a princess expect true happiness. Even this happiness cannot be gained without self-denial, I know it; it is difficult to every one to control themselves. To those who are born in the purple this virtue is ten times more difficult than to others. Forgive me," he continued, "I have become talkative, as often happens to us old people at Court."
"You have not said too much, my friend, nor too little," said the Princess, much moved. "I have always cherished the hope to live on quietly for myself, surrounded by men who would teach me the highest things that it is possible for a woman to acquire. On this path also I find tender duties, noble bonds which unite me with the best, and such a life also would not be unworthy of a princess; more than one have, in former times, chosen this lot, and posterity respects them."
"Your Highness does not mean Queen Christina of Sweden," replied the High Steward. "But to others also this lot has seldom been a blessing. Your Highness must remember that when a princess surrounds herself with wise men, she means always one man who is to her the wisest."
The Princess was silent, and looked down.
"We have now long discussed the possible position of a princess," began the old gentleman; "let us now consider the fate of the men who would be united by tender bonds to the life of an illustrious lady. Granted that she should succeed in finding a friend, who, without unseemly pretensions, would attach himself with self-denial and real devotion to the active and varied life of a princess. He must sacrifice much and forego much; the right of the husband is that the wife should devote herself to him, but in this case a man must fetter the powers, – nay, even the passions of his nature, – for a woman who would not belong to him, whom he could only cautiously approach at certain hours as a friend unto friend; who would consider him at first, to a certain extent, as a valuable possession and a beautiful ornament, but finally, under the best circumstances, as a useful bit of furniture. The greatest sufferer in such a position would be the artist or scholar. I have always felt compassion for the walking dictionaries of a princely household. Even men of great talent then resemble the philosophers of ancient Rome, who, with the long beard and the mantle of their schools, pass through the streets in the train of some distinguished lady."
The Princess rose, and turned away.
"Better, undoubtedly, is the situation of the man," concluded the High Steward, "whose personality allows him to guide, by silent work, the life-current of his high-born friend. Yet even he must not only himself lose much of what is most delightful in life, but, even with the purest intentions, he will not always be able to give pleasure to his princess. He who would be more than a faithful servant diminishes the security of his princely mistress. Should such chivalrous devotion be offered, a noble woman should hesitate to accept it, but to endeavor to attract it does not become a princess."
Tears rushed to the eyes of the Princess, and she turned quickly to the old man.
"I know such a life," she exclaimed; "one that has been passed in unceasing self-denial-a blessing to three ladies of our family. O my father, I know well what you have been to us; have patience with your poor ward. I struggle against your words; it is a hard task for me to listen to you, and yet I know that you are the only secure support that I have ever had in this life. Your admonitions alone have preserved me from destruction."
Again she seized his hand, and her head sank on his shoulder.
"I loved your grandmother," replied the old man, with trembling voice; "it was at a time when such things were lightly thought of. It was a pure connection; I lived for her; I made daily self-sacrifice for her. She was unhappy, for she was the wife of another, and her holiest duties were made difficult to her by my life. I guarded your mother like an anxious servant, but I could not prevent her from being unhappy and dying with the feeling of her misery. And now I hold the third generation to my heart, and before I am called away I would like to impress my life and the sufferings of your mother as a lesson on you. I have never been so anxious about you as I am now. If my dear child has ever felt the heart of a fatherly friend in my words, she should not lightly esteem my counsel now, whatever brilliant dreams it may dispel."
"I will think of your words," exclaimed the Princess. "I will endeavor to resign my wishes; but, father, my kind father, it will be very hard for me."
The old gentleman collected himself, and interrupted her.
"It is enough," he said, with the composure that befitted his office; "your Highness has shown me great consideration to-day. There are others who also desire their share of your Highness's favor."
There was a knock at the door. The waiting-woman entered.
"The servant announces that Lady Gotlinde and the gentlemen are waiting in the tea-room."
"I have still some business with his Excellency," answered the Princess, gently. "I must beg Gotlinde to take my place in entertaining our guest."
Evening had descended upon the castle-tower, the bats flew from their hiding-places in the vacant room; they whirled about in circles, astonished that they had awoke in an empty habitation. The owls flew into the crevices of the tower, and searched with their round eyes after the old arm-chairs, on which they had formerly waited for the stupid mice; and the death-watch, which the scholar had carried down from the lonely room, gnawed and ticked on the staircase and in the rooms of the castle among living men. The rain beat against the walls, and the stormy wind howled round the tower. The wife of the scholar was driving through the night, flying like a hunted hare; but he was pacing up and down his room, dreamily forming from the discovered leaves the whole lost manuscript. And again he wondered within himself that it looked quite different from what he had imagined it for years.
The wind also howled about the princely castle at the capital, and large drops of rain beat against the window; there, also, the powers of nature raged and demanded entrance into the firm fortress of man. The darkness of the night seemed to pervade the halls and the decorated rooms like gloomy smoke; only the lamps in the pleasure-grounds threw their pale light through the window, and made the desolate look of the room still more dreary. The melancholy tones of the castle clock sounded through the house, announcing that the first hour of the new day was come. Then again silence, desolate silence, everywhere; only a pale glimmer from the distance on the covers of the chandeliers and the golden ornaments of the walls. Sometimes there was a crackling in the parquet of the floor, and a draught of wind blew through an open pane upon the curtains, which hung black round the window like funeral drapery. Here and there fell a scanty ray of light on the wall, where hung the portraits of the ancestors of the princely house in the dress of their time. Many generations had dwelt in these rooms; stately men and beautiful women had danced here. Wine had been poured out in golden goblets; gracious words, festive speeches, and the soft murmur of love, had been heard here; the splendor of every former age had been outdone by the richer adornment of later ones. Now everything had vanished and withered; the darkness of night and of death hung over the bright colors. All those who had once moved about and rejoiced in the brilliant throng, had passed away into the depths. Nothing now remained of these hours but a dreary void and dismal stillness, and one single figure which glided about on the smooth floor, noiseless like a ghost. It was the lord of this castle. His head bent forward as in a dream, he passed along by the pictures of his ancestors.
"The timid doe has escaped," he whispered; "the panther made too short a spring: in rage and shame he now creeps back to his den. The powerful beast could not conceal his claws. The chase is over; it is time to set at rest the beatings of this breast. It was only a woman-a small, unknown human life. But the jade Fancy had bound my senses to her body; to her alone belonged whatever remained in me of warmth and devotion to human kind."
He stopped before a picture, on which fell the gloomy light of an expiring lamp.
"You, my steel-clad ancestor, know what the feeling is of him who flies from home and court, and has to give up to his enemy what is dear to him. When you fled from the castle of your fathers, a homeless fugitive, pursued by a pack of foreign mercenaries, there was misery in your heart, and you cast back a wild curse behind you. Still poorer does your descendant feel, who now glides fleeting through the inheritance that you have left him. To you remained hope in your hard heart; but I to-day have lost all that is worth the effort of life. She has escaped my guards. Where to? To her father's house on the rock! Cursed be the hour when I, deceived by her words, sent the boy among those mountains."
He dragged himself onward.
"The third station on the road to the end," he meditated, "is idle and empty play, and puerile tricks. So said the learned pedant. It coincides; I am transformed into a childish caricature of my nature. Miserable was the texture of the net which I drew around her; a firm will could have broken it in a moment. He was right; the game was childish: by a stroke of a quill I wished to hold him fast, and, before the art of the Magister had accomplished its purpose, I disturbed the success of the scheme by the trembling haste of my passion. When the news comes to him that his wife has fled, he also will pack up his books, and mock me at a safe distance. Bad player, who approached the gaming-table with a good method, to put piece after piece on the green cloth, and who in his madness flung down his purse and lost all in one throw. Curses upon him and me! He must not escape from me; he must not see her. Yet, what use is there in keeping him, unless I encase his limbs in iron, or conceal his body below, where we shall all be concealed when others obtain the power of doing what they will with us? You lie. Professor, when you compare me to your old Emperors. I am alarmed at the thought of things which they did laughing, and my brain refuses to think of what was once commanded by a short gesture of the hand. A ball and dice for two," he continued; "that is a merry game, invented by men of my sort; as it turns up, one falls and the other escapes. We will throw the dice. Professor, to see which of us shall do his opponent the last service; and I will greet you, dreamer, if I am the fortunate one that is carried to rest. Does thy wit, philosopher, extend far enough to see thy fate, as happened to that old astrologer, of whom thy Tiberius inquired about his own future? Let us try how wise you are."
He again stood still, and looked restlessly on the dark pictures.
"You shake your heads, you silent figures; many of you have done injury to others; but you are all honorably interred, with mourning marshals and funeral horses. Songs have been sung in your honor, and learned men have framed Latin elegies, and sighed that the golden shower has ceased that fell upon them from your hands. There stands one of you," he exclaimed, gazing with fixed eyes on a corner; "there hovers the spirit of woe, the dark shadow that passes through this house when misfortune approaches it-guilt and atonement It passes along bodiless to frighten fools, an apparition of my diseased mind. I see it raise its hand-it scares me. I am terrified at the images of my own brain. Away!" he called out, aloud, "away! I am the lord of this house."
He ran through the room and stumbled; the black shadow hastened behind him. The Sovereign fell upon the floor. He cried aloud for help through the desolate space. A valet hastened from the anteroom. He found his master lying on the ground.
"I heard a shrill cry," said the Sovereign, raising himself up; "who was it that screamed above my head?"
The servant replied, trembling:
"I know not who it was. I heard the cry, and hastened hither."
"It was myself, I suppose," the master returned, in a faltering tone; "my weakness overcame me."
In the early morning the Professor called to the Castellan, and rushed up the staircase of the tower. He went about the room, pushing boards and planks in all directions; he found many forgotten chests, but not that which he sought. He made the Castellan open each of the adjoining rooms; went through garrets and cellars; he examined the forester, who lived in a house near by, but the latter could give him no information. When the Scholar again entered his room, he laid his head on his hands; prolonged disappointment and the consciousness of his impotence overmastered him. But he chid and restrained himself.
"I have lost too much of the cool circumspection which Fritz said was the highest virtue of a collector. I must accustom myself to the thought of self-resignation, and calmly examine the hopes which still remain. I must not be ungrateful also for the little I have gained."
He could not sit quietly by the discovered leaves, but paced thoughtfully up and down. He heard voices in the court-yard; hasty running in the passages; and at last a lackey announced the arrival of the Sovereign, and that he wished to see the Professor at breakfast.
The table was spread among blooming bushes on the side of the tower that faced the rising sun. When the Professor entered under the roof which protected the place from rain and the rays of the sun, he found there, besides the household and Marshal, the forest officials and the Lord High Steward, who thought, with more anxiety than the Professor, of the sudden arrival of the Sovereign. The old lord approached the Scholar, and spoke on indifferent subjects.
"How long do you think of remaining here?" he asked, politely.
"I shall request permission to return to the city in an hour; I have accomplished what I had to do."
It was a long time before the princely party appeared. When the Sovereign approached them, all present were struck by his ill appearance: his movements were hurried, his features disturbed, and his looks passed unsteadily over the company. He turned first to the forester, who was in attendance, and asked him, harshly:
"How can you tolerate the disagreeable screaming of the daws on the tower? It was your business to remove them."
"Her Highness the Princess last summer requested that the birds be left."
"The noise is insupportable to me," said the Sovereign; "bring out the weapons, and prepare yourself to shoot among them."
As the practice of shooting was one of the regular country pleasures of the Court, and the Sovereign had, even in the neighborhood of the castle, frequently used his gun on birds of prey or other unusual objects, the Court thought less seriously of this commission than did the Scholar.
The Sovereign turned to the Lord High Steward.
"I am surprised to find your Excellency here," he said; "I did not know that you too had taken leave of absence for this quiet life."
"My gracious master would have been surprised if I had not done my duty. It was my intention to have reported to your Highness to-day at the palace concerning the health of the Princess."
"So it was for that," said the Sovereign. "I had forgotten that my Lord High Steward is never weary of his office of guardian."
"An office that one has exercised almost half a century in the service of the illustrious family becomes in fact a habit," replied the High Steward. "Your Highness has heretofore judged with kind consideration the zeal of a servant who is anxious to make himself useful."
The Sovereign turned to the Marshal, and asked, in a suppressed voice:
"Will he remain?"
The Marshal replied, distressed:
"I could obtain no promise, nor even a wish from him."
"I knew it already," replied the Sovereign, hoarsely. He turned to the Professor, and violently forced himself to assume a friendly demeanor, as he said: "I have heard from my daughter of your campaign against broken chairs. I wish to have some talk with you alone about it."
They sat down to table. The Sovereign gazed vacantly before him, and drank several glasses of wine; the Princess also sat silent, the conversation flagged, the High Steward alone became talkative. He asked about a bust of Winkelmann, and spoke of the lively interest which the nation took in the fate of their intellectual leaders.
"It must be an agreeable feeling," he said, politely, to the Professor, "to be in a certain measure under the protection of the whole civilized world. In the majority of cases the private life of our great men of learning passes away uneventfully, but our people delight in occupying themselves with the course of life of those who have departed. If happy accident brings a person into contact with gentlemen of your standing, he must take care that he does not suffer for all eternity under the hands of later biographers. I confess," he continued, laughing, "that a fear on this point has robbed me of many interesting acquaintances."
The Professor answered, quietly:
"The people are conscious that they have by the labor of scholars first been raised from misery; but with greater experience in political life, their interest in the promoters of our present culture will assume more moderate proportions."
"I have told the Sovereign that you have found something here," remarked the Princess, across the table.
"There has been a remarkable discovery made in an ancient sepulchre," interrupted the High Steward; and he gave a diffuse account of a funeral urn.
But now the Sovereign himself turned to the Scholar.
"Surely you may hope to find the rest?"
"Unfortunately, I do not know where to search further," replied the Professor.
"What you have found, then," continued the Sovereign, with self-control, "is unimportant."
It did not please the Professor that the conversation should again turn upon the manuscript; he felt annoyed at having to talk about his Romans.
"It is a few chapters from the sixth book of the Annals," he replied, with reserve.
"When your Highness was at Pompeii," interposed the High Steward, "the inscriptions on the walls attracted your attention. In those days a beautiful treatise upon the subject came into my hands; it is fascinating to observe the lively people of lower Italy in the unrestrained expression of their love and their hatred. One feels oneself transplanted as vividly into the old time by the naïve utterances of the common people, as if one took a newspaper in one's hand that had been written centuries ago. If any one had told the citizens of Pompeii that at the end of eighteen centuries it would be known who they, in accidental ill-humor, had treated with hostility, they would hardly have believed it. We indeed are more cautious."
"That was the hatred of insignificant people," replied the Sovereign, absently. "Tacitus knew nothing of that, he only concerned himself about the scandal of the court. Probably he also held office."
The Princess looked uneasily at the Sovereign.
"Is there anything in the contents of the parchment leaves which would be interesting to us ladies?" she said, endeavoring to turn the conversation.
"Nothing new," replied the Scholar. "As I had the honor of telling your Highness, the same passage was already known to us from an Italian manuscript: it is about small events in the Roman senate."
"Quarrels of the assembled fathers," interposed the Sovereign, carelessly. "They were miserable slaves. Is that all?"
"At the end, there is another anecdote of the last years of Tiberius. The disturbed mind of the prince clung to astrology: he called astrologers to him to Capri, and caused those to be cast into the sea whom he suspected of deceit. Even the prudent Trasyllus was taken to him over the fatal rock path, and he announced the concealed secret of the Imperial life. Then the Emperor furtively asked of him whether he knew what would happen to himself that day? The philosopher inquired of the stars, and called out, trembling: 'My situation is critical; I see myself in danger of death.' At this passage our fragment breaks off. The incident may have been repeated-the same anecdote attaches to more than one princely life."
A couple of daws flew round the battlements of the tower, they cawed and screamed, and told one another that underneath there stood a sportsman who was seeking his game. The Sovereign suddenly arose.
"There must be an end to the screaming of these birds."
He beckoned to the forester. The man approached, and placed a weapon in his hands. The Sovereign placed the but-end on the ground and turned to the Professor, while the Princess, disquieted by the last words of the Scholar, stood aside with her suite, struggling for composure.
"The Princess has told me," began the Sovereign, "that you have some hesitation as to fulfilling a wish that we have all much at heart. I hope that the hindrances may not be insurmountable."
"It becomes me," replied the Professor, delighted by the kind words of the Sovereign, "to weigh calmly so honorable a proposal. But I have other things to take into account besides the cause of learning."
"What others?" asked the Sovereign.
"The wish of a loved wife," said the Professor. A sudden convulsion shook the limbs of the Sovereign.
"And how do you consider your relations to me?" asked the Sovereign, in a hoarse voice.
The Scholar looked at the man, from whose eyes darted a look of deadly hatred and malignity. He saw the muzzle of the weapon directed toward his breast, and the raised foot of the Sovereign feeling for the trigger. The flash of lightning impended, there was no room for flight, no time for movement; the thought of the last moment passed through his mind. He saw before him the distorted countenance of the Emperor Tiberius, and he said, in a low voice:
"I stand on the verge of death."
"The Sovereign is sinking," called out the High Steward.
He threw himself with outstretched arms towards his master, and seized his hands. The Sovereign tottered, the weapon fell to the ground, he himself was received in the arms of those who hastened toward him. The Princess flew up to them, and looked inquiringly into the pale face of the Scholar.
"The Sovereign has been attacked by a sudden dizziness," answered the latter calmly.
"My master is losing consciousness," cried the High Steward. "How are you, Mr. Werner?"
The hands of the old man trembled. The Sovereign lay senseless in the arms of his attendants, and was carried to the castle.
The by-standers expressed with much concern their terror at the event and the Princess hastened after the stricken Sovereign. Before the High Steward followed, he said to the Professor, whilst giving him a searching look:
"It is not the first time that the Sovereign has been taken ill in such a manner. Was that a surprise to you? You did not know that the Sovereign was suffering in this way?"
"I know it to-day," replied the Scholar, coldly.
A few minutes afterwards the High Steward entered the room of the Professor, who was preparing for his journey.
"I come to beg your indulgence," began the High Steward; "for I must trouble you with an acknowledgment which is painful to me. You have talked much lately in my presence to the Sovereign of the Cæsarian madness of the Roman emperors. What you then said was very instructive to me."
"I now find," replied the Professor, gloomily, "that the place was ill chosen."
"More than you assume," replied the courtier, drily. "To me it was peculiarly instructive, but not so much what you said as that you said it. I should not have thought it possible that any one would so acutely reason upon the past, and so completely give up all judgment of that which was around him. You then told a sick man the story of his own disease."
"I have just discovered that," replied the Scholar.
"The Sovereign is diseased in mind. It is now necessary that you should know it. I have a second confession to make to you. I discover that I have misjudged you."
"I shall be glad if your present opinion is more favorable to me than the former one," replied the Professor, with dignity.
"In your point of view, yes," continued the High Steward. "I have for a long time regarded you in your relations here as a cautious man, who was cleverly following out his objects. I have learnt that you are not that, but something different."
"An honorable man, your Excellency," replied the Professor.
"We have nothing to reproach one another with," rejoined the courtier, bowing; "as you misjudged the Sovereign, so did I misunderstand you; but my mistake is the greater, for I am an older man, and I have not the excuse of a specially intellectual mind, which sometimes makes it difficult for a man to judge correctly of other natures. But we have both one excuse. It is seldom easy to form a just estimate of those who have grown up in other circles, and show a different combination of virtues and weaknesses. We are all liable to be confused in our judgment, according as our self-respect is satisfied or wounded. Where genial tendencies find no response, displeasure erects a barrier; and where powerful tones echo sympathetically to one's breast, there is the danger of too rapid intimacy. Thus I have put too low a value on your honorable openness and candor. I now pay the penalty, for I have to confide to you a secret that I have no doubt you will accept with proper regard."
"I assume that your Excellency does not make this communication to me without a specific cause."
"There is a plan for keeping you in our city," interposed the High Steward.
"Proposals of this nature have been made to me since yesterday."
The High Steward continued: "It is not necessary for me to be anxious about your answer. You have learnt the meaning which is concealed under a veil of civility. Do you know why the Sovereign made you the proposal?"
"No; up to this morning I have not doubted that a certain personal feeling of kindness, and the view that I might be useful here, were the motives."
"You are mistaken," replied the High Steward. "It is not a wish to keep you here merely for passing private interests. The real motive is, as appears to me, the freak of a diseased mind, which sees in you an opponent, and fears a sharp-sightedness that will remorselessly disclose to the world a diseased spirit. You were to be fettered here; you were to be cajoled, watched, and persecuted. You are an object of interest, of fear, and of aversion."
The Professor rose.
"What I have experienced and what you tell me compel me to leave this place instantly."
"I do not wish," said the High Steward, "that you shall depart from here with displeasure, if this can be avoided; both on your own account and for the sake of many of us."
The Professor went to the table, on which lay the parchment leaves.
"I beg your indulgence if I do not regain my composure immediately. The situation in which we are placed is like that of a distant century; it stands in fearful contrast to the cheerful security with which we are wont to consider our own lives and the souls of our contemporaries."
"Cheerful security?" asked the High Steward, sorrowfully. "In courts, at least, you must not seek this, nor under any circumstances in which the individual passes out of private life. Cheerful security! I must ask whether we have it in this century? It would be difficult to find a time in which there is so much that is insecure; in which the old is so decayed, and the new so weak."
The Professor raised his head, astonished at the bitter complaints of the old man. The High Steward continued, indignantly:
"I hear everywhere of the hopes that one has in the nation, and I see an abundance of young student-like confidence. There is not much mature power, and I do not blame a sanguine man if he places his hopes on it; nay, I even admit that this youthful spirit is in fact the best hope that we have. But I am an old man; I cannot among these novelties find anything that commands my respect, where they affect the interests of private life. I feel the decay of vital power in the air which surrounds me. My youth belonged to a time when the best culture of the nation was to be found at Court. My own ancestors have for six centuries taken an eager part in the follies and crimes, and also in the pride, of their times; and I have grown to be a man in the conception that princes and nobles were the born leaders of the nation. I see with sorrow that they have for long, perhaps for ever, lost this lead. Much of what you lately said exactly coincides with the last decades that I have passed through. It has been a sorrowful time; the hollow weakness in the life of the people has in a great measure deteriorated the higher classes. But there has not been altogether a deficiency of honorable and powerful men. What time has been entirely without them? But what should be the noblest blossom of the national strength is just what in this empty shallow time is most deeply diseased."