Chapter III (2)

The great manoeuvres took place on the parade-ground. The king accompanied the emperor and the princes on horseback, with a bevy of European and oriental aides-de-camp. Their consorts with their suite watched the march-past from landaus. Berengar marched bravely with his company of grenadiers, in which he was a lieutenant, as well as he could march with his short little legs, and stiffened his small features, so as not to betray the difficulty it cost him to keep pace with his men's long step. The hussars astonished the Syrian monarch by their unity with their horses, when in wild career they threw themselves half off and in still more rapid rushes picked up a flag from the ground, swung themselves up again with a yell and waved the bunting. The Africans executed their showy fantasias, brandished their spears, which flashed like loosened sheaves of sunbeams, and came fluttering on in clouds of white burnouses and dust, amid which their negro heads clustered darkly in endless black patches and their eyes glistened.

In addition there was a military tournament, followed by garden-parties, races, regattas, popular games and fireworks. Lipara was one city of pleasure. Every day it was traversed by royal processions, the array of uniforms glittered like live gold, the imperial landaus rattled in the sun, with the spokes of their wheels flashing through the light dust which flew up from the flagged pavements of the town. Most brilliant of all, like drops of white flame, were the diamonds which the Syrian pair wore even in the streets. At night, when the sun ceased shining, there shone over the white town, vague with evening light, and over its violet harbour, festoons of salamanders and gaudy bridges of fire, factitiously bright beneath the silent silver glances of the stars; rockets fell hissing into the water, on which the boats showed black, and left behind them a faint, oppressive savour of gunpowder in the night.

In the great hall of pillars the ceremonial banquets followed one after the other, with a display of gold plate of incredible value. The Queen of Syria wore her curious, theatrical costumes, her broad bosom always crossed by the blue ribbon of an order covered with badges; her hair was dressed with tall plumes, hung with small diamonds. She talked with great vivacity, thankful for the kindness of her Liparian friends, for the enjoyment and for the cheering. Her profuse gestures enlivened everybody, introduced an element of fun into the stately Liparian etiquette. Elizabeth herself could not but laugh at them. The queen played her royal part with the self-possession of a bad but good-natured actress. She spoke to everybody, spread amiable little atoms of her small, chubby, brown majesty over one and all. Next her sat the king, looking dignified and wise as Solomon. The emperor praised him for a sensible, broad-minded sovereign: the king had already paid many visits to Europe. The Syrian aide-de-camps were dignified too, calm and composed, a little stiff in their ways, adapting themselves to western manners; the queen's ladies-in-waiting wore the trains of their Paris or London dresses a little strangely, but still looked slender in them, brown and attractive, with their curly little heads and long, almond-shaped eyes: still they would have been prettier in draped gold-gauze.

The Syrians stayed twelve days before going on to Italy. It was the last evening but one: in the Imperial a suite of fourteen rooms had been lighted up around the great ballroom for a ball. Three thousand invitations had been sent out. In the fore-court and in the neighbouring main-streets stood the grenadiers.

The ballroom was at the back of the palace; the tall, balconied windows were open and looked across their balustrades upon the shadows of the park of plane-trees. The band resounded from the groups of palms in the gallery. The imperial quadrille had been formed in the centre of the room: the emperor with the queen, the king and the empress, the Archduke of Carinthia and Thera, Othomar with the archduchess. The other official quadrilles formed their figures around them. Hundreds of guests looked on.

From the coruscating rock-crystal of the chandeliers, the electric light flowed in white patches out of the high dome, glided along the inlaid-marble walls and porphyry pillars of the ballroom and poured in millions of scintillations on the smooth facets of the jewels, on the gold of the uniforms and court-dresses, on the shimmering white brocades of the trains; for white was prescribed: all the ladies were in white; and the snow of the velvets, the lily glow of the satins were silver-shrill. One blinding whirl of refulgence passed through the immense room with its changing glamours. For the light never stood still, continually changed its brightest spot, turned the ball into one glittering kaleidoscope. The light gilded each bit of gold-lace, was caught in every brilliant, hung in every pearl. The music seemed to be one with that light; the brass resounded like gold.

The Duchess of Yemena stood among a group of diplomatists and equerries; she rose monumental in her beauty, which was statuesque and splendid in this wayward illumination. She seemed supernaturally tall, thanks to the heavy Watteau plait which trailed from her back in white brocade. She wore her tiara of emeralds and brilliants; and the same green stones sparkled in a great jewelled spray that blossomed over her bodice.

The emperor came up to her; she drooped in her famous curtsey and Oscar jested with her for a moment. When the emperor had passed on, she saw the crown-prince approach. She curtseyed again; he bowed smilingly and offered her his arm. Slowly they went through the ballroom.

"I have something important to say to you," he whispered, in a conversational tone.

He could not move away with her; they would be missed. So they continued to walk through the rooms.

"It is so long since I saw you ... alone!" she whispered, reproachfully, in the same voice. "And what did ... what did your highness wish to say to me?"

They spoke cautiously, with the smile of cool conversation on their lips, deadening the sound of their voices, casting indifferent glances around them, to see whether they could be overheard.

"Something ... that I have long wanted to tell you.... A decision I have to take...."

The words came crumbling in fragments from his lips and not sounding with their true accent, from caution. She perceived that he was about to tell her some great piece of news. She trembled without knowing why.... He himself did not know whether what he was doing was cruel or not: he did not know this woman well enough for that. But he did know that he had purposely chosen this difficult moment for his interview, because he was uncertain how she would bear it ... how she would bear it in a _tête-à-tête_, when she would be able to give way to her passion. Here he knew how she would bear it: smilingly, as a woman of the world, although it turned to anguish for her. Perhaps after all he was cruel.... But it was too late now: he must go through with it.

She looked up at him, moving the feathers of her fan. He continued:

"A decision.... When our Syrian guests have left ... I ... I am going on a journey...."

"Where to, highness?"

"To ... to different European courts...."

She asked nothing more; her smile died away; then she smiled again, like an automaton. She asked nothing more, because she well knew what it meant when a crown-prince went on a journey to different European courts. That meant a bridal progress. And she merely said, in a voice that could not but sound plaintively:

"So soon?..."

So soon!... Was her imperial romance to last so short a time? She had indeed known that this might be the end of it, for she knew him to be too pure to retain her by the side of a young consort. Also she had pictured an end like this after a year, two years perhaps, she withdrawing herself, and she had pictured to herself that she would do so without any feeling of spite against her young future empress. But now! So soon! Barely a few weeks! So short a time as that no romance of her life had ever lasted! She felt an aching melancholy; a mist hazed over her eyes; and the lights of the ballroom shimmered before her as if through water. She constantly forgot to smile, but, so soon as she remembered, she smiled again:

"So soon?..."

"It must be...."

Yes, it must be, it could not be otherwise. For her, this was the end of her life. She felt no despair because of this ending; only a smarting sorrow. It was the end. After this imperial romance there would be no other. Oh no, never more! She would sacrifice her youth to it; she would launch her stepdaughters into society. She would be grateful that she had lived and would now grow old. But old: she was still so young, she still felt herself so young! She now first perceived how she loved her crown-prince. And she would have liked to be elsewhere, far from the brilliant ball, to embrace him once more alone, for the last time.... Oh, this sorrow because everything must end, as though nothing were more than a fleeting perfume!...

"I am trusting you, duchess," he now said. "I hope you will say nothing about this journey. You understand, it is all still a secret; no choice has been made yet ... it has been discussed with no one except their majesties and Myxila. I can trust you, can't I?"

She smilingly nodded yes.

"But I wanted to tell you at once," he continued.

She smiled again. At this moment a strange storm seemed to burst ... behind the palace, under the palace, where? Right through the blare of the music and the blaze of the light, a crash of thunder shook and rolled. It was as though the palace had been struck by lightning, for immediately afterwards, through the open windows, there came from one of the back-wings of the palace a rattling clatter of stones, which seemed tossed into the air, of great rafters, which fell noisily and roughly, of shivers of glass, which seemed to be splintering shrilly on every side....

The music was suddenly silenced. The uniforms, the court-trains rushed to the open balconies, which overlooked the park; but the night was dark, the park was hushed. A last couple of rafters seemed to be still falling, with a last crash of stones....

In the bright glare of the electric light, faces turned deathly pale, like the faces of corpses. Eyes stared at one another in terror. The duchess half-sank against Othomar when she saw Elizabeth tear past her with wild, vacant eyes and out at a door, her long, white velvet train trailing madly after her, round the corner. The mistress of the robes followed her; so did Hélène of Thesbia. The emperor appeared to give the chamberlains some hurried orders; then he also left the ballroom, accompanied by a few officers.

Shortly afterwards the music again burst forth from the balcony in the gallery. Many equerries and aides-de-camp were seen bowing to their partners, the ladies trembling as they rose. The ball proceeded; the uniforms and trains glittered as before in the windings of the waltz. But the smiles seemed to have been obliterated from the dancers' features and their pallid faces turned the ball into a dance of death.

Leoni, shivering, bowed before Othomar:

"A dynamite explosion, low down in the cellars of the western back-wing. The anterooms of his majesty's private apartments are destroyed. His majesty requests your highness to make every effort to continue the ball. All officers and court-ladies are commanded to dance."

The duchess clutched Othomar's arm, almost fainting. The rumour spread around them. The equerries dragged their partners along half-swooning. Two were seen carried away in a dead faint. The Queen of Syria stood vacantly beside the Archduke of Carinthia, who put his arm round her heavy waist to dance. She did not yet seem able to make up her mind.

Othomar passed his arm round the duchess:

"O God, I can't do it!" she stammered. "For God's sake, highness, don't ask me!..."

"We must," he said. "His majesty wishes it...."

"His majesty wishes...." she repeated.

Her legs trembled beneath her as though with electric thrills. Then she let him take her and they danced.

Every one danced.

The empress had rushed up the stairs and along the galleries to the bedroom-floor. She did not see that two ladies were following her; she thrust back a door:

"Berengar!" she screamed.

The young prince's bedroom was lighted. The boy had half-risen, in his little shirt, from his camp-bed. His valet and a chambermaid stood in dismay in the middle of the room.

"Berengar!" the empress gasped out, rejoicing when she saw him unharmed.

She threw her arms around him, pressed him to her bosom.

"Oh, mamma, you're hurting me!" cried the boy, indignantly.

Her jewels had brought a drop of blood from his little bare chest. She now embraced him more gently, with nervous sobs that choked in her throat. A spray of diamond ostrich-feathers fell to the ground; the maid picked them up with awkward fingers.

"Mamma, are they blowing up the palace?"

"No, Berengar, no, it's nothing...."

"Mamma, I want to go and look! I must see what's happening!"

"Berengar...."

The door had been left open; the emperor entered, calmly. The ladies stood in the corridor, waiting for the empress....

"Papa, may I go with you and look?"

"No, Berengar, there's nothing to see. Go to sleep...."

Then he offered his arm to Elizabeth:

"Madam," he said, tranquilly.

She threw him an imploring glance. He continued to hold out his arm to her. Then she kissed the boy once more, soothed him to sleep:

"Wait a moment," she stammered to Oscar.

She went to the glass; the maid, with her clumsy fingers, fastened the jewelled spray to the edge of the low-cut bodice, spread out the square train.

"I'm ready," the empress said to Oscar, in a lifeless voice.

She took his arm; the emperor just pressed her hand; and they nodded once more to Berengar and went.

Arm-in-arm the imperial pair appeared for the second time at the ball. The empress was pale but smiling. She was magnificent, delicate with dainty majesty in the trailing white velvet, upon which, on the bodice and over the front of the skirt, flickered sprays of diamond ostrich-feathers, formed into fleurs-de-lys. An empress' crown of brilliants crowned her small, round head.

It was two o'clock. Generally the sovereigns were accustomed to stay till one o'clock at the court balls. The Queen of Syria, however, in her exuberant love of life, had begged them to stay longer. They had consented. Had they left at one o'clock, the explosion would have taken place at the moment when Oscar would probably just have entered his apartments. They had first talked of the anterooms only: but it would now appear that great damage had also been done to the emperor's own room.

Supper began. They supped in a large hall; from every table rose a palm-tree and the hall was thus turned into a forest of palms. The floor was strewn with gold sand, which powdered the trains as their wearers walked upon it. Electric light shone through the long leaves like moonlight. In this moonlight the faces remained deadly white, like patches of chalk, above the glittering crystal and all the gold plate. The music clattered with great cymbal-strokes of brass.

5

"To HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF GOTHLAND.

"IMPERIAL,
"LIPARA,
"--_May_, 18--.

"MY DEAREST SISTER,

"At last I can find time to write to you. The excitement of the visit of our good Syrians is over and Lipara has calmed down. But my reflections are nothing but sadness. And this is why, Olga.

"I fear that Othomar is much more ill than the doctors perceive. He has become thinner and looks very bad. He never complains much, but yet he told me lately that he often felt tired. The doctors think that he needs a rest and recommend a long sea-voyage. His journey through Europe, about which I wrote to you in my last, will have to be postponed. And now I want to ask you a favour.

"I know that Herman is soon going to take a long voyage on the _Viking_ to India, Japan and America; and it would be my fondest wish at this moment that Othomar might accompany him. When the doctors advised a sea-voyage, I discussed the matter to Oscar, but we came to no decision. My boy, you must know, Olga, has no friend of his own age; and this made me so sad and we did not know how nor with whom to send him on this voyage in a way which would be pleasant for him and which would not involve a solitary banishment from our home-circle. He is on excellent terms with his equerries, but yet that is not what I should desire: a cordial, mutual, confidential friendship with some one of his own age with whom he could spend a certain time, solely with a view to enjoyment and relaxation.

"I know quite well that it is to some extent my boy's fault and due to his innate diffidence and reticence. Nevertheless he has qualities for which he could easily be loved, if they were known, if he allowed them to appear. Don't you agree, Olga? You are fond of him too: it is not only my own blind mother's love that finds my son lovable and sympathetic? And that is why I should be so very glad if Herman would take him with him and learn to know him better: who knows whether they would not then come to love each other! Othomar has already told me that, on their journey through the north of Liparia, they were drawn much closer together than they had thought they would be; but it was a busy time: every moment was filled with duties and business and they had no time to talk together and get to know each other. And yet, at such a difficult period of united labour, two young men can learn to know each other even without talking. At any rate, they have already become more friendly. At one time, Olga, they used to dislike each other, to my bitter sorrow; they would even not meet; even outwardly there was nothing but coolness between them: oh, how unhappy all this used to make me, when I saw our boys so hostile to each other and remembered how _we_ used to be, Olga, when we were girls together in our beautiful old castle near Bucharest! How we lived bound up in each other! Olga, Olga, how terribly long ago that all is! Our parents are dead, our brothers dispersed, the castle is deserted and we are separated: when do we see each other? Scarcely now and then, for a couple of days at a time, when we meet somewhere for a wedding of relations; and then these are always restless days, when we can see next to nothing of each other. Then, sometimes, not even every year, a fortnight either in Gothland or here. You sometimes reproach me that I, who am so fond of Gothland, come to you so seldom, but it is always for the same reason: Othomar does not care to leave Liparia and I can't leave my husband. I can be strong when I am at his side, but alone I am so weak, Olga. That anything might happen to _him_ which I should not share increases my dread unbearably. I felt that again quite lately, when I was with Thera at Altara: our visit was announced and binding; and, however unwilling I was to leave Oscar, I was obliged to go, was I not? It was just at that trying period; Lipara was under martial law. But Oscar wished me to go and I went. Oh, how I suffered at that time!

"But I am becoming used to my fears, I do not complain and I accept life as it comes; I only hope that my boy will also learn to accept it thus. Perhaps he will learn. Indeed it is not so easy for him, for he will have to do more than his mother, who, as a woman, can be much more passive; and it is easier to learn to acquiesce passively than actively. But the Saints will surely give him strength later to bear his lot and his crown; this I rely upon. And yet, O Olga, it makes me so immensely sad that we are sovereigns! But let me not continue in this strain: it weakens one, it is not right, it is not right....

"There is also a secret reason why I should like to get Othomar away from Lipara, though it always grieves me so much to part from my darling. There seems after all to be some truth in those rumours about the Duchess of Yemena: Oscar asked Myxila about it and he could not deny it and even said that it was generally known. I do my best not to take it too much to heart, Olga, but I think it a terrible thing. O God, let me not think or write about it any more; otherwise it will go whirling so in my poor head! What can my son see in a woman who is older than his own mother! What a terrible world, this is, Olga, in which these things take place; and how can there be such women, whom you and I will never understand! For, after all, temperament is not everything: every woman has her own heart; and in that we ought all to see one another; but it would seem that we can't. In my sadness about this, I prefer to assume that the woman loves my boy and therefore deceives her husband. Oh, it is so wicked also of my boy: why need he be like this, he who is otherwise so good! I just assume that she loves him. Not long ago we had my last drawing-room, the function with which, as you know, our winter-season ends; and, when she came up to me and bowed before me and pressed her lips to my hand, she must have felt my disapproval and my sadness radiating from my fingers, for she rose out of her curtsey with a desperate look of anguish in her eyes and a sort of sob in her throat! I stared at her coldly, but all the same I pitied her, Olga, for, when a woman of our world is so little able to control herself at a ceremonial moment, in the presence of her empress, her soul must have sustained a severe shock: do you not think so too?

"We are now quiet. In a week we are going to our summer-quarters in Xara, at Castel Xaveria; the weather is already very hot here. I should so much like to have your answer before we leave and to know how Herman takes my request. I know that he is very fond of me and will doubtless gladly grant it and that he will try to like Othomar for my sake; and let me hasten to add that it is also _Othomar's_ dearest wish that he should travel with Herman. The sea-voyage did not attract him in the least at first, because he knew of no one to take with him and he said he preferred to go with us to Castel Xaveria; but, when I mentioned Herman, he joined in my plan entirely.

"Olga, what will the summer bring us, peace or not? I dare not hope. The winter has been horrible; our northern provinces have not yet recovered from the disasters. The misery there is irretrievable. There is an epidemic of typhoid and there have been many cases of cholera. The strikes in the east are now over, but I am so afraid of that rough, violent repression. Oh, if everything could only be done with gentleness! That attempt on Othomar's life and the explosion at the last ball have also made me so ill. How I should love to see you and take you in my arms: can you not come to Castel Xaveria and spend the summer with us? It would give me such intense, such intense pleasure!

"Kiss Siegfried and the children for me. And answer me soon, will you not? I embrace you fervently.

"Your affectionate sister,

"ELIZABETH."