Robert Louis Stevenson

Prince Otto, a Romance
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The power of this man over the Princess is, therefore, without 
bounds.  She has sacrificed to the adoration with which he has 
inspired her not only her marriage vow and every shred of public 
decency, but that vice of jealousy which is so much dearer to the 
female sex than either intrinsic honour or outward consideration.  
Nay, more: a young, although not a very attractive woman, and a 
princess both by birth and fact, she submits to the triumphant 
rivalry of one who might be her mother as to years, and who is so 
manifestly her inferior in station.  This is one of the mysteries of 
the human heart.  But the rage of illicit love, when it is once 
indulged, appears to grow by feeding; and to a person of the 
character and temperament of this unfortunate young lady, almost any 
depth of degradation is within the reach of possibility.




CHAPTER III - THE PRINCE AND THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER


So far Otto read, with waxing indignation; and here his fury 
overflowed.  He tossed the roll upon the table and stood up.  'This 
man,' he said, 'is a devil.  A filthy imagination, an ear greedy of 
evil, a ponderous malignity of thought and language: I grow like him 
by the reading!  Chancellor, where is this fellow lodged?'

'He was committed to the Flag Tower,' replied Greisengesang, 'in the 
Gamiani apartment.'

'Lead me to him,' said the Prince; and then, a thought striking him, 
'Was it for that,' he asked, 'that I found so many sentries in the 
garden?'

'Your Highness, I am unaware,' answered Greisengesang, true to his 
policy.  'The disposition of the guards is a matter distinct from my 
functions.'

Otto turned upon the old man fiercely, but ere he had time to speak, 
Gotthold touched him on the arm.  He swallowed his wrath with a 
great effort.  'It is well,' he said, taking the roll.  'Follow me 
to the Flag Tower.'

The Chancellor gathered himself together, and the two set forward.  
It was a long and complicated voyage; for the library was in the 
wing of the new buildings, and the tower which carried the flag was 
in the old schloss upon the garden.  By a great variety of stairs 
and corridors, they came out at last upon a patch of gravelled 
court; the garden peeped through a high grating with a flash of 
green; tall, old gabled buildings mounted on every side; the Flag 
Tower climbed, stage after stage, into the blue; and high over all, 
among the building daws, the yellow flag wavered in the wind.  A 
sentinel at the foot of the tower stairs presented arms; another 
paced the first landing; and a third was stationed before the door 
of the extemporised prison.

'We guard this mud-bag like a jewel,' Otto sneered.

The Gamiani apartment was so called from an Italian doctor who had 
imposed on the credulity of a former prince.  The rooms were large, 
airy, pleasant, and looked upon the garden; but the walls were of 
great thickness (for the tower was old), and the windows were 
heavily barred.  The Prince, followed by the Chancellor, still 
trotting to keep up with him, brushed swiftly through the little 
library and the long saloon, and burst like a thunderbolt into the 
bedroom at the farther end.  Sir John was finishing his toilet; a 
man of fifty, hard, uncompromising, able, with the eye and teeth of 
physical courage.  He was unmoved by the irruption, and bowed with a 
sort of sneering ease.

'To what am I to attribute the honour of this visit?' he asked.

'You have eaten my bread,' replied Otto, 'you have taken my hand, 
you have been received under my roof.  When did I fail you in 
courtesy?  What have you asked that was not granted as to an 
honoured guest?  And here, sir,' tapping fiercely on the manuscript, 
'here is your return.'

'Your Highness has read my papers?' said the Baronet.  'I am 
honoured indeed.  But the sketch is most imperfect.  I shall now 
have much to add.  I can say that the Prince, whom I had accused of 
idleness, is zealous in the department of police, taking upon 
himself those duties that are most distasteful.  I shall be able to 
relate the burlesque incident of my arrest, and the singular 
interview with which you honour me at present.  For the rest, I have 
already communicated with my Ambassador at Vienna; and unless you 
propose to murder me, I shall be at liberty, whether you please or 
not, within the week.  For I hardly fancy the future empire of 
Grunewald is yet ripe to go to war with England.  I conceive I am a 
little more than quits.  I owe you no explanation; yours has been 
the wrong.  You, if you have studied my writing with intelligence, 
owe me a large debt of gratitude.  And to conclude, as I have not 
yet finished my toilet, I imagine the courtesy of a turnkey to a 
prisoner would induce you to withdraw.'

There was some paper on the table, and Otto, sitting down, wrote a 
passport in the name of Sir John Crabtree.

'Affix the seal, Herr Cancellarius,' he said, in his most princely 
manner, as he rose.

Greisengesang produced a red portfolio, and affixed the seal in the 
unpoetic guise of an adhesive stamp; nor did his perturbed and 
clumsy movements at all lessen the comedy of the performance.  Sir 
John looked on with a malign enjoyment; and Otto chafed, regretting, 
when too late, the unnecessary royalty of his command and gesture.  
But at length the Chancellor had finished his piece of 
prestidigitation, and, without waiting for an order, had 
countersigned the passport.  Thus regularised, he returned it to 
Otto with a bow.

'You will now,' said the Prince, 'order one of my own carriages to 
be prepared; see it, with your own eyes, charged with Sir John's 
effects, and have it waiting within the hour behind the Pheasant 
House.  Sir John departs this morning for Vienna.'

The Chancellor took his elaborate departure.

'Here, sir, is your passport,' said Otto, turning to the Baronet.  
'I regret it from my heart that you have met inhospitable usage.'

'Well, there will be no English war,' returned Sir John.

'Nay, sir,' said Otto, 'you surely owe me your civility.  Matters 
are now changed, and we stand again upon the footing of two 
gentlemen.  It was not I who ordered your arrest; I returned late 
last night from hunting; and as you cannot blame me for your 
imprisonment, you may even thank me for your freedom.'

'And yet you read my papers,' said the traveller shrewdly.

'There, sir, I was wrong,' returned Otto; 'and for that I ask your 
pardon.  You can scarce refuse it, for your own dignity, to one who 
is a plexus of weaknesses.  Nor was the fault entirely mine.  Had 
the papers been innocent, it would have been at most an 
indiscretion.  Your own guilt is the sting of my offence.'

Sir John regarded Otto with an approving twinkle; then he bowed, but 
still in silence.

'Well, sir, as you are now at your entire disposal, I have a favour 
to beg of your indulgence,' continued the Prince.  'I have to 
request that you will walk with me alone into the garden so soon as 
your convenience permits.'

'From the moment that I am a free man,' Sir John replied, this time 
with perfect courtesy, 'I am wholly at your Highness's command; and 
if you will excuse a rather summary toilet, I will even follow you, 
as I am.'

'I thank you, sir,' said Otto.

So without more delay, the Prince leading, the pair proceeded down 
through the echoing stairway of the tower, and out through the 
grating, into the ample air and sunshine of the morning, and among 
the terraces and flower-beds of the garden.  They crossed the fish-
pond, where the carp were leaping as thick as bees; they mounted, 
one after another, the various flights of stairs, snowed upon, as 
they went, with April blossoms, and marching in time to the great 
orchestra of birds.  Nor did Otto pause till they had reached the 
highest terrace of the garden.  Here was a gate into the park, and 
hard by, under a tuft of laurel, a marble garden seat.  Hence they 
looked down on the green tops of many elm-trees, where the rooks 
were busy; and, beyond that, upon the palace roof, and the yellow 
banner flying in the blue.  I pray you to be seated, sir,' said 
Otto.

Sir John complied without a word; and for some seconds Otto walked 
to and fro before him, plunged in angry thought.  The birds were all 
singing for a wager.

'Sir,' said the Prince at length, turning towards the Englishman, 
'you are to me, except by the conventions of society, a perfect 
stranger.  Of your character and wishes I am ignorant.  I have never 
wittingly disobliged you.  There is a difference in station, which I 
desire to waive.  I would, if you still think me entitled to so much 
consideration - I would be regarded simply as a gentleman.  Now, 
sir, I did wrong to glance at these papers, which I here return to 
you; but if curiosity be undignified, as I am free to own, falsehood 
is both cowardly and cruel.  I opened your roll; and what did I find 
- what did I find about my wife; Lies!' he broke out.  'They are 
lies!  There are not, so help me God! four words of truth in your 
intolerable libel!  You are a man; you are old, and might be the 
girl's father; you are a gentleman; you are a scholar, and have 
learned refinement; and you rake together all this vulgar scandal, 
and propose to print it in a public book!  Such is your chivalry!  
But, thank God, sir, she has still a husband.  You say, sir, in that 
paper in your hand, that I am a bad fencer; I have to request from 
you a lesson in the art.  The park is close behind; yonder is the 
Pheasant House, where you will find your carriage; should I fall, 
you know, sir - you have written it in your paper - how little my 
movements are regarded; I am in the custom of disappearing; it will 
be one more disappearance; and long before it has awakened a remark, 
you may be safe across the border.'

'You will observe,' said Sir John, 'that what you ask is 
impossible.'

'And if I struck you?' cried the Prince, with a sudden menacing 
flash.

'It would be a cowardly blow,' returned the Baronet, unmoved, 'for 
it would make no change.  I cannot draw upon a reigning sovereign.'

'And it is this man, to whom you dare not offer satisfaction, that 
you choose to insult!' cried Otto.

'Pardon me,' said the traveller, 'you are unjust.  It is because you 
are a reigning sovereign that I cannot fight with you; and it is for 
the same reason that I have a right to criticise your action and 
your wife.  You are in everything a public creature; you belong to 
the public, body and bone.  You have with you the law, the muskets 
of the army, and the eyes of spies.  We, on our side, have but one 
weapon - truth.'

'Truth!' echoed the Prince, with a gesture.

There was another silence.

'Your Highness,' said Sir John at last, 'you must not expect grapes 
from a thistle.  I am old and a cynic.  Nobody cares a rush for me; 
and on the whole, after the present interview, I scarce know anybody 
that I like better than yourself.  You see, I have changed my mind, 
and have the uncommon virtue to avow the change.  I tear up this 
stuff before you, here in your own garden; I ask your pardon, I ask 
the pardon of the Princess; and I give you my word of honour as a 
gentleman and an old man, that when my book of travels shall appear 
it shall not contain so much as the name of Grunewald.  And yet it 
was a racy chapter!  But had your Highness only read about the other 
courts!  I am a carrion crow; but it is not my fault, after all, 
that the world is such a nauseous kennel.'

'Sir,' said Otto, 'is the eye not jaundiced?'

'Nay,' cried the traveller, 'very likely.  I am one who goes 
sniffing; I am no poet.  I believe in a better future for the world; 
or, at all accounts, I do most potently disbelieve in the present.  
Rotten eggs is the burthen of my song.  But indeed, your Highness, 
when I meet with any merit, I do not think that I am slow to 
recognise it.  This is a day that I shall still recall with 
gratitude, for I have found a sovereign with some manly virtues; and 
for once - old courtier and old radical as I am - it is from the 
heart and quite sincerely that I can request the honour of kissing 
your Highness's hand?'

'Nay, sir,' said Otto, 'to my heart!'

And the Englishman, taken at unawares, was clasped for a moment in 
the Prince's arms.

'And now, sir,' added Otto, 'there is the Pheasant House; close 
behind it you will find my carriage, which I pray you to accept.  
God speed you to Vienna!'

'In the impetuosity of youth,' replied Sir John, 'your Highness has 
overlooked one circumstance.  I am still fasting.'

'Well, sir,' said Otto, smiling, 'you are your own master; you may 
go or stay.  But I warn you, your friend may prove less powerful 
than your enemies.  The Prince, indeed, is thoroughly on your side; 
he has all the will to help; but to whom do I speak? - you know 
better than I do, he is not alone in Grunewald.'

'There is a deal in position,' returned the traveller, gravely 
nodding.  'Gondremark loves to temporise; his policy is below 
ground, and he fears all open courses; and now that I have seen you 
act with so much spirit, I will cheerfully risk myself on your 
protection.  Who knows?  You may be yet the better man.'

'Do you indeed believe so?' cried the Prince.  'You put life into my 
heart!'

'I will give up sketching portraits,' said the Baronet.  'I am a 
blind owl; I had misread you strangely.  And yet remember this; a 
sprint is one thing, and to run all day another.  For I still 
mistrust your constitution; the short nose, the hair and eyes of 
several complexions; no, they are diagnostic; and I must end, I see, 
as I began.'

'I am still a singing chambermaid?' said Otto.

'Nay, your Highness, I pray you to forget what I had written,' said 
Sir John; 'I am not like Pilate; and the chapter is no more.  Bury 
it, if you love me.'




CHAPTER IV - WHILE THE PRINCE IS IN THE ANTE-ROOM . . .


GREATLY comforted by the exploits of the morning, the Prince turned 
towards the Princess's ante-room, bent on a more difficult 
enterprise.  The curtains rose before him, the usher called his 
name, and he entered the room with an exaggeration of his usual 
mincing and airy dignity.  There were about a score of persons 
waiting, principally ladies; it was one of the few societies in 
Grunewald where Otto knew himself to be popular; and while a maid of 
honour made her exit by a side door to announce his arrival to the 
Princess, he moved round the apartment, collecting homage and 
bestowing compliments with friendly grace.  Had this been the sum of 
his duties, he had been an admirable monarch.  Lady after lady was 
impartially honoured by his attention.

'Madam,' he said to one, 'how does this happen?  I find you daily 
more adorable.'

'And your Highness daily browner,' replied the lady.  'We began 
equal; O, there I will be bold: we have both beautiful complexions.  
But while I study mine, your Highness tans himself.'

'A perfect negro, madam; and what so fitly - being beauty's slave?' 
said Otto. - 'Madame Grafinski, when is our next play?  I have just 
heard that I am a bad actor.'

'O CIEL!' cried Madame Grafinski.  'Who could venture?  What a 
bear!'

'An excellent man, I can assure you,' returned Otto.

'O, never!  O, is it possible!' fluted the lady.  'Your Highness 
plays like an angel.'

'You must be right, madam; who could speak falsely and yet look so 
charming?' said the Prince.  'But this gentleman, it seems, would 
have preferred me playing like an actor.'

A sort of hum, a falsetto, feminine cooing, greeted the tiny sally; 
and Otto expanded like a peacock.  This warm atmosphere of women and 
flattery and idle chatter pleased him to the marrow.

'Madame von Eisenthal, your coiffure is delicious,' he remarked.

'Every one was saying so,' said one.

'If I have pleased Prince Charming?'  And Madame von Eisenthal swept 
him a deep curtsy with a killing glance of adoration.

'It is new?' he asked.  'Vienna fashion.'

'Mint new,' replied the lady, 'for your Highness's return.  I felt 
young this morning; it was a premonition.  But why, Prince, do you 
ever leave us?'

'For the pleasure of the return,' said Otto.  'I am like a dog; I 
must bury my bone, and then come back to great upon it.'

'O, a bone!  Fie, what a comparison!  You have brought back the 
manners of the wood,' returned the lady.

'Madam, it is what the dog has dearest,' said the Prince.  'But I 
observe Madame von Rosen.'

And Otto, leaving the group to which he had been piping, stepped 
towards the embrasure of a window where a lady stood.

The Countess von Rosen had hitherto been silent, and a thought 
depressed, but on the approach of Otto she began to brighten.  She 
was tall, slim as a nymph, and of a very airy carriage; and her 
face, which was already beautiful in repose, lightened and changed, 
flashed into smiles, and glowed with lovely colour at the touch of 
animation.  She was a good vocalist; and, even in speech, her voice 
commanded a great range of changes, the low notes rich with tenor 
quality, the upper ringing, on the brink of laughter, into music.  A 
gem of many facets and variable hues of fire; a woman who withheld 
the better portion of her beauty, and then, in a caressing second, 
flashed it like a weapon full on the beholder; now merely a tall 
figure and a sallow handsome face, with the evidences of a reckless 
temper; anon opening like a flower to life and colour, mirth and 
tenderness:- Madame von Rosen had always a dagger in reserve for the 
despatch of ill-assured admirers.  She met Otto with the dart of 
tender gaiety.

 'You have come to me at last, Prince Cruel,' she said.  'Butterfly!  
Well, and am I not to kiss your hand?' she added.

'Madam, it is I who must kiss yours.'  And Otto bowed and kissed it.

'You deny me every indulgence,' she said, smiling.

'And now what news in Court?' inquired the Prince.  'I come to you 
for my gazette.'

'Ditch-water!' she replied.  'The world is all asleep, grown grey in 
slumber; I do not remember any waking movement since quite an 
eternity; and the last thing in the nature of a sensation was the 
last time my governess was allowed to box my ears.  But yet I do 
myself and your unfortunate enchanted palace some injustice.  Here 
is the last - O positively!'  And she told him the story from behind 
her fan, with many glances, many cunning strokes of the narrator's 
art.  The others had drawn away, for it was understood that Madame 
von Rosen was in favour with the Prince.  None the less, however, 
did the Countess lower her voice at times to within a semitone of 
whispering; and the pair leaned together over the narrative.

'Do you know,' said Otto, laughing, 'you are the only entertaining 
woman on this earth!'

'O, you have found out so much,' she cried.

'Yes, madam, I grow wiser with advancing years,' he returned.

'Years,' she repeated.  'Do you name the traitors?  I do not believe 
in years; the calendar is a delusion.'

'You must be right, madam,' replied the Prince.  'For six years that 
we have been good friends, I have observed you to grow younger.'

'Flatterer!' cried she, and then with a change, 'But why should I 
say so,' she added, 'when I protest I think the same?  A week ago I 
had a council with my father director, the glass; and the glass 
replied, "Not yet!"  I confess my face in this way once a month.  O! 
a very solemn moment.  Do you know what I shall do when the mirror 
answers, "Now"?'

'I cannot guess,' said he.

'No more can I,' returned the Countess.  'There is such a choice!  
Suicide, gambling, a nunnery, a volume of memoirs, or politics - the 
last, I am afraid.'

'It is a dull trade,' said Otto.

'Nay,' she replied, 'it is a trade I rather like.  It is, after all, 
first cousin to gossip, which no one can deny to be amusing.  For 
instance, if I were to tell you that the Princess and the Baron rode 
out together daily to inspect the cannon, it is either a piece of 
politics or scandal, as I turn my phrase.  I am the alchemist that 
makes the transmutation.  They have been everywhere together since 
you left,' she continued, brightening as she saw Otto darken; 'that 
is a poor snippet of malicious gossip - and they were everywhere 
cheered - and with that addition all becomes political 
intelligence.'

'Let us change the subject,' said Otto.

'I was about to propose it,' she replied, 'or rather to pursue the 
politics.  Do you know? this war is popular - popular to the length 
of cheering Princess Seraphina.'

'All things, madam, are possible,' said the Prince; and this among 
others, that we may be going into war, but I give you my word of 
honour I do not know with whom.'

'And you put up with it?' she cried.  'I have no pretensions to 
morality; and I confess I have always abominated the lamb, and 
nourished a romantic feeling for the wolf.  O, be done with 
lambiness!  Let us see there is a prince, for I am weary of the 
distaff.'

'Madam,' said Otto, 'I thought you were of that faction.'

'I should be of yours, MON PRINCE, if you had one,' she retorted.  
'Is it true that you have no ambition?  There was a man once in 
England whom they call the kingmaker.  Do you know,' she added, 'I 
fancy I could make a prince?'

'Some day, madam,' said Otto, 'I may ask you to help make a farmer.'

'Is that a riddle?' asked the Countess.

'It is,' replied the Prince, 'and a very good one too.'

'Tit for tat.  I will ask you another,' she returned.  'Where is 
Gondremark?'

'The Prime Minister?  In the prime-ministry, no doubt,' said Otto.

'Precisely,' said the Countess; and she pointed with her fan to the 
door of the Princess's apartments.  'You and I, MON PRINCE, are in 
the ante-room.  You think me unkind,' she added.  'Try me and you 
will see.  Set me a task, put me a question; there is no enormity I 
am not capable of doing to oblige you, and no secret that I am not 
ready to betray.'

'Nay, madam, but I respect my friend too much,' he answered, kissing 
her hand.  'I would rather remain ignorant of all.  We fraternise 
like foemen soldiers at the outposts, but let each be true to his 
own army.'

'Ah,' she cried, 'if all men were generous like you, it would be 
worth while to be a woman!'  Yet, judging by her looks, his 
generosity, if anything, had disappointed her; she seemed to seek a 
remedy, and, having found it, brightened once more.  'And now,' she 
said, 'may I dismiss my sovereign?  This is rebellion and a CAS 
PENDABLE; but what am I to do?  My bear is jealous!'

'Madam, enough!' cried Otto.  'Ahasuerus reaches you the sceptre; 
more, he will obey you in all points.  I should have been a dog to 
come to whistling.'

And so the Prince departed, and fluttered round Grafinski and von 
Eisenthal.  But the Countess knew the use of her offensive weapons, 
and had left a pleasant arrow in the Prince's heart.  That 
Gondremark was jealous - here was an agreeable revenge!  And Madame 
von Rosen, as the occasion of the jealousy, appeared to him in a new 
light.




CHAPTER V - . . . GONDREMARK IS IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER


THE Countess von Rosen spoke the truth.  The great Prime Minister of 
Grunewald was already closeted with Seraphina.  The toilet was over; 
and the Princess, tastefully arrayed, sat face to face with a tall 
mirror.  Sir John's description was unkindly true, true in terms and 
yet a libel, a misogynistic masterpiece.  Her forehead was perhaps 
too high, but it became her; her figure somewhat stooped, but every 
detail was formed and finished like a gem; her hand, her foot, her 
ear, the set of her comely head, were all dainty and accordant; if 
she was not beautiful, she was vivid, changeful, coloured, and 
pretty with a thousand various prettinesses; and her eyes, if they 
indeed rolled too consciously, yet rolled to purpose.  They were her 
most attractive feature, yet they continually bore eloquent false 
witness to her thoughts; for while she herself, in the depths of her 
immature, unsoftened heart, was given altogether to manlike ambition 
and the desire of power, the eyes were by turns bold, inviting, 
fiery, melting, and artful, like the eyes of a rapacious siren.  And 
artful, in a sense, she was.  Chafing that she was not a man, and 
could not shine by action, she had conceived a woman's part, of 
answerable domination; she sought to subjugate for by-ends, to rain 
influence and be fancy free; and, while she loved not man, loved to 
see man obey her.  It is a common girl's ambition.  Such was perhaps 
that lady of the glove, who sent her lover to the lions.  But the 
snare is laid alike for male and female, and the world most artfully 
contrived.

Near her, in a low chair, Gondremark had arranged his limbs into a 
cat-like attitude, high-shouldered, stooping, and submiss.  The 
formidable blue jowl of the man, and the dull bilious eye, set 
perhaps a higher value on his evident desire to please.  His face 
was marked by capacity, temper, and a kind of bold, piratical 
dishonesty which it would be calumnious to call deceit.  His 
manners, as he smiled upon the Princess, were over-fine, yet hardly 
elegant.

'Possibly,' said the Baron, 'I should now proceed to take my leave.  
I must not keep my sovereign in the ante-room.  Let us come at once 
to a decision.'

'It cannot, cannot be put off?' she asked.

'It is impossible,' answered Gondremark.  'Your Highness sees it for 
herself.  In the earlier stages, we might imitate the serpent; but 
for the ultimatum, there is no choice but to be bold like lions.  
Had the Prince chosen to remain away, it had been better; but we 
have gone too far forward to delay.'

'What can have brought him?' she cried.  'To-day of all days?'

'The marplot, madam, has the instinct of his nature,' returned 
Gondremark.  'But you exaggerate the peril.  Think, madam, how far 
we have prospered, and against what odds!  Shall a Featherhead? - 
but no!'  And he blew upon his fingers lightly with a laugh.

'Featherhead,' she replied, 'is still the Prince of Grunewald.'

'On your sufferance only, and so long as you shall please to be 
indulgent,' said the Baron.  'There are rights of nature; power to 
the powerful is the law.  If he shall think to cross your destiny - 
well, you have heard of the brazen and the earthen pot.'

'Do you call me pot?  You are ungallant, Baron,' laughed the 
Princess.

'Before we are done with your glory, I shall have called you by many 
different titles,' he replied.

The girl flushed with pleasure.  'But Frederic is still the Prince, 
MONSIEUR LE FLATTEUR,' she said.  'You do not propose a revolution? 
- you of all men?'

'Dear madam, when it is already made!' he cried.  'The Prince reigns 
indeed in the almanac; but my Princess reigns and rules.'  And he 
looked at her with a fond admiration that made the heart of 
Seraphina swell.  Looking on her huge slave, she drank the 
intoxicating joys of power.  Meanwhile he continued, with that sort 
of massive archness that so ill became him, 'She has but one fault; 
there is but one danger in the great career that I foresee for her.  
May I name it? may I be so irreverent?  It is in herself - her heart 
is soft.'

'Her courage is faint, Baron,' said the Princess.  'Suppose we have 
judged ill, suppose we were defeated?'

'Defeated, madam?' returned the Baron, with a touch of ill-humour.  
'Is the dog defeated by the hare?  Our troops are all cantoned along 
the frontier; in five hours the vanguard of five thousand bayonets 
shall be hammering on the gates of Brandenau; and in all Gerolstein 
there are not fifteen hundred men who can manoeuvre.  It is as 
simple as a sum.  There can be no resistance.'

'It is no great exploit,' she said.  'Is that what you call glory?  
It is like beating a child.'

'The courage, madam, is diplomatic,' he replied.  'We take a grave 
step; we fix the eyes of Europe, for the first time, on Grunewald; 
and in the negotiations of the next three months, mark me, we stand 
or fall.  It is there, madam, that I shall have to depend upon your 
counsels,' he added, almost gloomily.  'If I had not seen you at 
work, if I did not know the fertility of your mind, I own I should 
tremble for the consequence.  But it is in this field that men must 
recognise their inability.  All the great negotiators, when they 
have not been women, have had women at their elbows.  Madame de 
Pompadour was ill served; she had not found her Gondremark; but what 
a mighty politician!  Catherine de' Medici, too, what justice of 
sight, what readiness of means, what elasticity against defeat!  But 
alas! madam, her Featherheads were her own children; and she had 
that one touch of vulgarity, that one trait of the good-wife, that 
she suffered family ties and affections to confine her liberty.'

These singular views of history, strictly AD USUM SERAPHINAE, did 
not weave their usual soothing spell over the Princess.  It was 
plain that she had taken a momentary distaste to her own 
resolutions; for she continued to oppose her counsellor, looking 
upon him out of half-closed eyes and with the shadow of a sneer upon 
her lips.  'What boys men are!' she said; 'what lovers of big words!  
Courage, indeed!  If you had to scour pans, Herr Von Gondremark, you 
would call it, I suppose, Domestic Courage?'

'I would, madam,' said the Baron stoutly, 'if I scoured them well.  
I would put a good name upon a virtue; you will not overdo it: they 
are not so enchanting in themselves.'

'Well, but let me see,' she said.  'I wish to understand your 
courage.  Why we asked leave, like children!  Our grannie in Berlin, 
our uncle in Vienna, the whole family, have patted us on the head 
and sent us forward.  Courage?  I wonder when I hear you!'

'My Princess is unlike herself,' returned the Baron.  'She has 
forgotten where the peril lies.  True, we have received 
encouragement on every hand; but my Princess knows too well on what 
untenable conditions; and she knows besides how, in the publicity of 
the diet, these whispered conferences are forgotten and disowned.  
The danger is very real' - he raged inwardly at having to blow the 
very coal he had been quenching - 'none the less real in that it is 
not precisely military, but for that reason the easier to be faced.  
Had we to count upon your troops, although I share your Highness's 
expectations of the conduct of Alvenau, we cannot forget that he has 
not been proved in chief command.  But where negotiation is 
concerned, the conduct lies with us; and with your help, I laugh at 
danger.'

'It may be so,' said Seraphina, sighing.  'It is elsewhere that I 
see danger.  The people, these abominable people - suppose they 
should instantly rebel?  What a figure we should make in the eyes of 
Europe to have undertaken an invasion while my own throne was 
tottering to its fall!'

'Nay, madam,' said Gondremark, smiling, 'here you are beneath 
yourself.  What is it that feeds their discontent?  What but the 
taxes?  Once we have seized Gerolstein, the taxes are remitted, the 
sons return covered with renown, the houses are adorned with 
pillage, each tastes his little share of military glory, and behold 
us once again a happy family!  "Ay," they will say, in each other's 
long ears, "the Princess knew what she was about; she was in the 
right of it; she has a head upon her shoulders; and here we are, you 
see, better off than before."  But why should I say all this?  It is 
what my Princess pointed out to me herself; it was by these reasons 
that she converted me to this adventure.'

'I think, Herr von Gondremark,' said Seraphina, somewhat tartly, 
'you often attribute your own sagacity to your Princess.'

For a second Gondremark staggered under the shrewdness of the 
attack; the next, he had perfectly recovered.  'Do I?' he said.  'It 
is very possible.  I have observed a similar tendency in your 
Highness.'

It was so openly spoken, and appeared so just, that Seraphina 
breathed again.  Her vanity had been alarmed, and the greatness of 
the relief improved her spirits.  'Well,' she said, 'all this is 
little to the purpose.  We are keeping Frederic without, and I am 
still ignorant of our line of battle.  Come, co-admiral, let us 
consult. . . . How am I to receive him now?  And what are we to do 
if he should appear at the council?'

'Now,' he answered.  'I shall leave him to my Princess for just now!  
I have seen her at work.  Send him off to his theatricals!  But in 
all gentleness,' he added.  'Would it, for instance, would it 
displease my sovereign to affect a headache?'

'Never!' said she.  'The woman who can manage, like the man who can 
fight, must never shrink from an encounter.  The knight must not 
disgrace his weapons.'

'Then let me pray my BELLE DAME SANS MERCI,' he returned, 'to affect 
the only virtue that she lacks.  Be pitiful to the poor young man; 
affect an interest in his hunting; be weary of politics; find in his 
society, as it were, a grateful repose from dry considerations.  
Does my Princess authorise the line of battle?'

'Well, that is a trifle,' answered Seraphina.  'The council - there 
is the point.'

'The council?' cried Gondremark.  'Permit me, madam.'  And he rose 
and proceeded to flutter about the room, counterfeiting Otto both in 
voice and gesture not unhappily.  'What is there to-day, Herr von 
Gondremark?  Ah, Herr Cancellarius, a new wig!  You cannot deceive 
me; I know every wig in Grunewald; I have the sovereign's eye.  What 
are these papers about?  O, I see.  O, certainly.  Surely, surely.  
I wager none of you remarked that wig.  By all means.  I know 
nothing about that.  Dear me, are there as many as all that?  Well, 
you can sign them; you have the procuration.  You see, Herr 
Cancellarius, I knew your wig.  And so,' concluded Gondremark, 
resuming his own voice, 'our sovereign, by the particular grace of 
God, enlightens and supports his privy councillors.'

But when the Baron turned to Seraphina for approval, he found her 
frozen.  'You are pleased to be witty, Herr von Gondremark,' she 
said, 'and have perhaps forgotten where you are.  But these 
rehearsals are apt to be misleading.  Your master, the Prince of 
Grunewald, is sometimes more exacting.'

Gondremark cursed her in his soul.  Of all injured vanities, that of 
the reproved buffoon is the most savage; and when grave issues are 
involved, these petty stabs become unbearable.  But Gondremark was a 
man of iron; he showed nothing; he did not even, like the common 
trickster, retreat because he had presumed, but held to his point 
bravely.  'Madam,' he said, 'if, as you say, he prove exacting, we 
must take the bull by the horns.'

'We shall see,' she said, and she arranged her skirt like one about 
to rise.  Temper, scorn, disgust, all the more acrid feelings, 
became her like jewels; and she now looked her best.

'Pray God they quarrel,' thought Gondremark.  'The damned minx may 
fail me yet, unless they quarrel.  It is time to let him in.  Zz - 
fight, dogs!'  Consequent on these reflections, he bent a stiff knee 
and chivalrously kissed the Princess's hand.  'My Princess,' he 
said, 'must now dismiss her servant.  I have much to arrange against 
the hour of council.'

'Go,' she said, and rose.

And as Gondremark tripped out of a private door, she touched a bell, 
and gave the order to admit the Prince.




CHAPTER VI - THE PRINCE DELIVERS A LECTURE ON MARRIAGE, WITH 
PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF DIVORCE


WITH what a world of excellent intentions Otto entered his wife's 
cabinet! how fatherly, how tender! how morally affecting were the 
words he had prepared!  Nor was Seraphina unamiably inclined.  Her 
usual fear of Otto as a marplot in her great designs was now 
swallowed up in a passing distrust of the designs themselves.  For 
Gondremark, besides, she had conceived an angry horror.  In her 
heart she did not like the Baron.  Behind his impudent servility, 
behind the devotion which, with indelicate delicacy, he still forced 
on her attention, she divined the grossness of his nature.  So a man 
may be proud of having tamed a bear, and yet sicken at his captive's 
odour.  And above all, she had certain jealous intimations that the 
man was false and the deception double.  True, she falsely trifled 
with his love; but he, perhaps, was only trifling with her vanity.  
The insolence of his late mimicry, and the odium of her own position 
as she sat and watched it, lay besides like a load upon her 
conscience.  She met Otto almost with a sense of guilt, and yet she 
welcomed him as a deliverer from ugly things.

But the wheels of an interview are at the mercy of a thousand ruts; 
and even at Otto's entrance, the first jolt occurred.  Gondremark, 
he saw, was gone; but there was the chair drawn close for 
consultation; and it pained him not only that this man had been 
received, but that he should depart with such an air of secrecy.  
Struggling with this twinge, it was somewhat sharply that he 
dismissed the attendant who had brought him in.

'You make yourself at home, CHEZ MOI,' she said, a little ruffled 
both by his tone of command and by the glance he had thrown upon the 
chair.

'Madam,' replied Otto, 'I am here so seldom that I have almost the 
rights of a stranger.'

'You choose your own associates, Frederic,' she said.

'I am here to speak of it,' he returned.  'It is now four years 
since we were married; and these four years, Seraphina, have not 
perhaps been happy either for you or for me.  I am well aware I was 
unsuitable to be your husband.  I was not young, I had no ambition, 
I was a trifler; and you despised me, I dare not say unjustly.  But 
to do justice on both sides, you must bear in mind how I have acted.  
When I found it amused you to play the part of Princess on this 
little stage, did I not immediately resign to you my box of toys, 
this Grunewald?  And when I found I was distasteful as a husband, 
could any husband have been less intrusive?  You will tell me that I 
have no feelings, no preference, and thus no credit; that I go 
before the wind; that all this was in my character.  And indeed, one 
thing is true, that it is easy, too easy, to leave things undone.  
But Seraphina, I begin to learn it is not always wise.  If I were 
too old and too uncongenial for your husband, I should still have 
remembered that I was the Prince of that country to which you came, 
a visitor and a child.  In that relation also there were duties, and 
these duties I have not performed.'

To claim the advantage of superior age is to give sure offence.  
'Duty!' laughed Seraphina, 'and on your lips, Frederic!  You make me 
laugh.  What fancy is this?  Go, flirt with the maids and be a 
prince in Dresden china, as you look.  Enjoy yourself, MON ENFANT, 
and leave duty and the state to us.'

The plural grated on the Prince.  'I have enjoyed myself too much,' 
he said, 'since enjoyment is the word.  And yet there were much to 
say upon the other side.  You must suppose me desperately fond of 
hunting.  But indeed there were days when I found a great deal of 
interest in what it was courtesy to call my government.  And I have 
always had some claim to taste; I could tell live happiness from 
dull routine; and between hunting, and the throne of Austria, and 
your society, my choice had never wavered, had the choice been mine.  
You were a girl, a bud, when you were given me - '

'Heavens!' she cried, 'is this to be a love-scene?'

'I am never ridiculous,' he said; 'it is my only merit; and you may 
be certain this shall be a scene of marriage A LA MODE.  But when I 
remember the beginning, it is bare courtesy to speak in sorrow.  Be 
just, madam: you would think me strangely uncivil to recall these 
days without the decency of a regret.  Be yet a little juster, and 
own, if only in complaisance, that you yourself regret that past.'

'I have nothing to regret,' said the Princess.  'You surprise me.  I 
thought you were so happy.'

'Happy and happy, there are so many hundred ways,' said Otto.  'A 
man may be happy in revolt; he may be happy in sleep; wine, change, 
and travel make him happy; virtue, they say, will do the like - I 
have not tried; and they say also that in old, quiet, and habitual 
marriages there is yet another happiness.  Happy, yes; I am happy if 
you like; but I will tell you frankly, I was happier when I brought 
you home.'

'Well,' said the Princess, not without constraint, 'it seems you 
changed your mind.'

'Not I,' returned Otto, 'I never changed.  Do you remember, 
Seraphina, on our way home, when you saw the roses in the lane, and 
I got out and plucked them?  It was a narrow lane between great 
trees; the sunset at the end was all gold, and the rooks were flying 
overhead.  There were nine, nine red roses; you gave me a kiss for 
each, and I told myself that every rose and every kiss should stand 
for a year of love.  Well, in eighteen months there was an end.  But 
do you fancy, Seraphina, that my heart has altered?'

'I am sure I cannot tell,' she said, like an automaton.

'It has not,' the Prince continued.  'There is nothing ridiculous, 
even from a husband, in a love that owns itself unhappy and that 
asks no more.  I built on sand; pardon me, I do not breathe a 
reproach - I built, I suppose, upon my own infirmities; but I put my 
heart in the building, and it still lies among the ruins.'

'How very poetical!' she said, with a little choking laugh, unknown 
relentings, unfamiliar softnesses, moving within her.  'What would 
you be at?' she added, hardening her voice.

'I would be at this,' he answered; 'and hard it is to say.  I would 
be at this:- Seraphina, I am your husband after all, and a poor fool 
that loves you.  Understand,' he cried almost fiercely, 'I am no 
suppliant husband; what your love refuses I would scorn to receive 
from your pity.  I do not ask, I would not take it.  And for 
jealousy, what ground have I?  A dog-in-the-manger jealousy is a 
thing the dogs may laugh at.  But at least, in the world's eye, I am 
still your husband; and I ask you if you treat me fairly?  I keep to 
myself, I leave you free, I have given you in everything your will.  
What do you in return?  I find, Seraphina, that you have been too 
thoughtless.  But between persons such as we are, in our conspicuous 
station, particular care and a particular courtesy are owing.  
Scandal is perhaps not easy to avoid; but it is hard to bear.'

'Scandal!' she cried, with a deep breath.  'Scandal!  It is for this 
you have been driving!'

'I have tried to tell you how I feel,' he replied.  'I have told you 
that I love you - love you in vain - a bitter thing for a husband; I 
have laid myself open that I might speak without offence.  And now 
that I have begun, I will go on and finish.'

'I demand it,' she said.  'What is this about?'

Otto flushed crimson.  'I have to say what I would fain not,' he 
answered.  'I counsel you to see less of Gondremark.'

'Of Gondremark?  And why?' she asked.

'Your intimacy is the ground of scandal, madam,' said Otto, firmly 
enough - 'of a scandal that is agony to me, and would be crushing to 
your parents if they knew it.'

'You are the first to bring me word of it,' said she.  'I thank 
you.'

'You have perhaps cause,' he replied.  'Perhaps I am the only one 
among your friends - '

'O, leave my friends alone,' she interrupted.  'My friends are of a 
different stamp.  You have come to me here and made a parade of 
sentiment.  When have I last seen you?  I have governed your kingdom 
for you in the meanwhile, and there I got no help.  At last, when I 
am weary with a man's work, and you are weary of your playthings, 
you return to make me a scene of conjugal reproaches - the grocer 
and his wife!  The positions are too much reversed; and you should 
understand, at least, that I cannot at the same time do your work of 
government and behave myself like a little girl.  Scandal is the 
atmosphere in which we live, we princes; it is what a prince should 
know.  You play an odious part.  Do you believe this rumour?'

'Madam, should I be here?' said Otto.

'It is what I want to know!' she cried, the tempest of her scorn 
increasing.  'Suppose you did - I say, suppose you did believe it?'

'I should make it my business to suppose the contrary,' he answered.

'I thought so.  O, you are made of baseness!' said she.

'Madam,' he cried, roused at last, 'enough of this.  You wilfully 
misunderstand my attitude; you outwear my patience.  In the name of 
your parents, in my own name, I summon you to be more circumspect.'

'Is this a request, MONSIEUR MON MARI?' she demanded.

'Madam, if I chose, I might command,' said Otto.

'You might, sir, as the law stands, make me prisoner,' returned 
Seraphina.  'Short of that you will gain nothing.'

'You will continue as before?' he asked.

'Precisely as before,' said she.  'As soon as this comedy is over, I 
shall request the Freiherr von Gondremark to visit me.  Do you 
understand?' she added, rising.  'For my part, I have done.'

'I will then ask the favour of your hand, madam,' said Otto, 
palpitating in every pulse with anger.  'I have to request that you 
will visit in my society another part of my poor house.  And 
reassure yourself - it will not take long - and it is the last 
obligation that you shall have the chance to lay me under.'

'The last?' she cried.  'Most joyfully?'

She offered her hand, and he took it; on each side with an elaborate 
affectation, each inwardly incandescent.  He led her out by the 
private door, following where Gondremark had passed; they threaded a 
corridor or two, little frequented, looking on a court, until they 
came at last into the Prince's suite.  The first room was an 
armoury, hung all about with the weapons of various countries, and 
looking forth on the front terrace.

'Have you brought me here to slay me?' she inquired.

'I have brought you, madam, only to pass on,' replied Otto.

Next they came to a library, where an old chamberlain sat half 
asleep.  He rose and bowed before the princely couple, asking for 
orders.

'You will attend us here,' said Otto.

The next stage was a gallery of pictures, where Seraphina's portrait 
hung conspicuous, dressed for the chase, red roses in her hair, as 
Otto, in the first months of marriage, had directed.  He pointed to 
it without a word; she raised her eyebrows in silence; and they 
passed still forward into a matted corridor where four doors opened.  
One led to Otto's bedroom; one was the private door to Seraphina's.  
And here, for the first time, Otto left her hand, and stepping 
forward, shot the bolt.

'It is long, madam,' said he, 'since it was bolted on the other 
side.'

'One was effectual,' returned the Princess.  'Is this all?'

'Shall I reconduct you?' he asking, bowing.

'I should prefer,' she asked, in ringing tones, 'the conduct of the 
Freiherr von Gondremark.'

Otto summoned the chamberlain.  'If the Freiherr von Gondremark is 
in the palace,' he said, 'bid him attend the Princess here.'  And 
when the official had departed, 'Can I do more to serve you, madam?' 
the Prince asked.

'Thank you, no.  I have been much amused,' she answered.

'I have now,' continued Otto, 'given you your liberty complete.  
This has been for you a miserable marriage.'

'Miserable!' said she.

'It has been made light to you; it shall be lighter still,' 
continued the Prince.  'But one thing, madam, you must still 
continue to bear - my father's name, which is now yours.  I leave it 
in your hands.  Let me see you, since you will have no advice of 
mine, apply the more attention of your own to bear it worthily.'

'Herr von Gondremark is long in coming,' she remarked.

'O Seraphina, Seraphina!' he cried.  And that was the end of their 
interview.

She tripped to a window and looked out; and a little after, the 
chamberlain announced the Freiherr von Gondremark, who entered with 
something of a wild eye and changed complexion, confounded, as he 
was, at this unusual summons.  The Princess faced round from the 
window with a pearly smile; nothing but her heightened colour spoke 
of discomposure.

Otto was pale, but he was otherwise master of himself.

'Herr von Gondremark,' said he, 'oblige me so far: reconduct the 
Princess to her own apartment.'

The Baron, still all at sea, offered his hand, which was smilingly 
accepted, and the pair sailed forth through the picture-gallery.

As soon as they were gone, and Otto knew the length and breadth of 
his miscarriage, and how he had done the contrary of all that he 
intended, he stood stupefied.  A fiasco so complete and sweeping was 
laughable, even to himself; and he laughed aloud in his wrath.  Upon 
this mood there followed the sharpest violence of remorse; and to 
that again, as he recalled his provocation, anger succeeded afresh.  
So he was tossed in spirit; now bewailing his inconsequence and lack 
of temper, now flaming up in white-hot indignation and a noble pity 
for himself.

He paced his apartment like a leopard.  There was danger in Otto, 
for a flash.  Like a pistol, he could kill at one moment, and the 
next he might he kicked aside.  But just then, as he walked the long 
floors in his alternate humours, tearing his handkerchief between 
his hands, he was strung to his top note, every nerve attent.  The 
pistol, you might say, was charged.  And when jealousy from time to 
time fetched him a lash across the tenderest of his feeling, and 
sent a string of her fire-pictures glancing before his mind's eye, 
the contraction of his face was even dangerous.  He disregarded 
jealousy's inventions, yet they stung.  In this height of anger, he 
still preserved his faith in Seraphina's innocence; but the thought 
of her possible misconduct was the bitterest ingredient in his pot 
of sorrow.

There came a knock at the door, and the chamberlain brought him a 
note.  He took it and ground it in his hand, continuing his march, 
continuing his bewildered thoughts; and some minutes had gone by 
before the circumstance came clearly to his mind.  Then he paused 
and opened it.  It was a pencil scratch from Gotthold, thus 
conceived:
                
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