Chapter V (1)

1

It was after the state banquet in the castle at Sigismundingen, where the imperial families of Liparia and Austria were assembled to celebrate the betrothal of the Duke of Xara and the Archduchess Valérie. It was in September: the day had been sultry and in the evening the oppressive heat still hung brooding in the air.

Dinner was just over and the imperial procession returned through a long corridor to the reception-rooms. All the balcony-windows of the brightly-lighted gallery stood open; beneath, as in an abyss of river landscape, flowed the Danube, rolling against the rocks, while above it towered the castle with its innumerable little pointed turrets. The mountain-tops were defined in a sombre, violet amphitheatre against the paler sky, which was incessantly lit with electric flashes, as of noiseless lightning. The wood stood gloomy and black, shadowy, sloping up with the peaked tops of its fir-trees against the mountains; in the distance lay small houses, huddled in the dusk of the evening, like some straggling hamlet, with here and there a yellow light.

The Emperor of Liparia gave his arm to the mother of the bride, the Archduchess Eudoxie; then followed the Emperor of Austria with the Empress of Liparia, the Archduke Albrecht with the Empress of Austria, Othomar with Valérie....

Valérie, lightly pressing Othomar's arm, withdrew with him from the procession:

"It was so warm in the dining-room; you will excuse me," she said to Othomar's sister, the Archduchess of Carinthia, who was following with one of her Austrian cousins.

Valérie's smile requested the archduchess to go on. The others followed: the august guests, the equerries, the ladies-in-waiting; they smiled to the betrothed imperial couple, who stood in one of the open window-recesses to let them pass.

They remained alone in the gallery, before the open window:

"I need air," said Valérie, with a sigh.

He made no reply. They stood together in silence, gazing at the evening landscape. He was wearing the uhlan uniform of the Austrian regiment which he commanded; and a new order glittered amongst the others on his breast: the Golden Fleece of Austria. She seemed to have grown older than she was at Altseeborgen, in her pink-silk evening-dress, with wide, puffed sleeves of very pale-green velvet, a tight-curled border of white ostrich-feathers edging the low-cut bodice and the train.

"Shall I leave you alone for a little, Valérie?" he asked, gently.

She shook her head, smiling sadly. Her bosom seemed to heave with uncontrollable emotion.

"Why, Othomar?" she asked. "I am lonely enough at nights, with my thoughts. Leave me alone with them as little as you can...."

She suddenly held out her hand to him:

"Will you forgive your future empress her broken heart?" she asked, suddenly, with a great sob.

And her pale, shrunken face turned full towards him, with two eyes like those of a stricken doe. An irrepressible feeling of pity caused something to well up unexpectedly in his soul; he squeezed her hand and turned away, so as not to weep.

He looked out of the window. Some of the pointed towers, visible from here, rose with an air of sombre romance against the sky, which was luminous with electricity. Below them, romantically, murmured the Danube. The mountains were like the landscape in a ballad. But no ballad, no romance echoed between their two hearts. The prose of the inevitable necessity was the only harmony that united them. But this harmony also united them in reality, brought them together, made them understand each other, feel and live at one with each other. They were now for a minute alone and their eyes frankly sought the depths of each other's souls. There was no need for pretence between these two: each saw the other's sorrow lying shivering and naked in the other's heart.

It was not the riotous passion of despair that they beheld. They saw a gentle, tremulous sadness; they looked at it with wide, staring eyes of anguish, as children look who think they see a ghost. For them that ghost issued from life itself: life itself became for them a ghostly existence. They themselves were spectres, though they know that they were tangible, with bodies. What were they?

Dream-beings, with crowns; they lived and bowed and acted and smiled as in a dream, because of their crowns. They did not exist: a vagueness did indeed suggest in their dream-brains that something might exist, in other laws of nature than those of their sphere, but in their sphere they did not exist....

His hand was toying mechanically with some papers that lay near him, on the mirror-bracket between two of the window-recesses; they were illustrated periodicals, doubtless left there by some chamberlain. He took one up, to while their sad silence, and opened it. The first thing that he saw was their own portraits:

"Look," he said.

He showed them to her. They now turned over the pages together, saw the portraits also of their parents, a drawing of the castle, a corner of Sigismundingen Park. Then together they read the announcement of their engagement. They were first each described separately: he, an accomplished prince, doing a great deal of good, very popular in his own country and cordially loved by the Emperor of Austria; she, every inch a princess, born to be the empress of a great empire, with likewise her special accomplishments. The eyes of all Europe were fixed upon them at the moment. For their marriage would not only be an imperial alliance of great political importance, but would also tie a knot of real harmony: their marriage was a love-match. There had been attempts to make it seem otherwise, but this was not correct. In Gothland, in the home circle at Altseeborgen, the young couple had learnt to know each other well; their love had sprung like an idyll from the sea and the Duke of Xara had once even saved the archduchess' life, when she had ventured out too far, in stormy weather, in a rowing-boat. Their love was like a novel with a happy ending. The Emperor Oscar would rather have seen the Grand-duchess Xenia crown-princess of Liparia and attached great value to an alliance with Russia, but he had yielded before his son's love.... And the article ended by saying that the wedding would take place in October in the old palace at Altara.

They read it together, with their mournful faces, their wide, fixed eyes, which still smarted with staring into each other's souls. Not a single remark came from their lips after reading the article; they only just smiled their two heartrending smiles; then they laid the paper down again. And she asked, with that strange calm with which this betrothed pair were trying to get to know each other:

"Othomar ... do you care for nobody?"

A flush suffused his cheeks. Did she know of Alexa?

"I did once think that I ... that I was in love," he confessed; "but I do not believe that it was really love. I now believe that I do not possess the capacity to concentrate my whole soul upon a feeling for one other soul alone; I should not know how to find it, that one soul, and I should fear to make a mistake, or to deceive myself.... No, I do not believe that I shall ever know that exclusive feeling. I rather feel within me a great, wide, general love, an immense compassion, for our people. It is strange of me perhaps...."

He said it almost shyly, as though it were something abnormal, that general love, of which he ought to be ashamed before her.

"A great love," he explained once more, when she continued to look at him in silence; and he made an embracing gesture with his arms, "for our people...."

"Do you really feel that?" she asked, in surprise.

"Yes...."

A sort of vista opened out before her, as though an horizon of light were dawning right at the end of her dark melancholy; but that horizon was so far, so very far away....

"But, Othomar," she said, "that is very good. It is very beautiful to feel like that!"

He shrugged his shoulders:

"Beautiful? How do you mean? I cannot but feel it when I see all the misery that exists ... among our people, the lower orders, the very lowest especially. If they were all happy and enjoying abundance, there would be no need for me to feel it. So what is there beautiful about it?"

She gave a little laugh:

"I can't argue against that, it's too deep for me. I can't say that I have ever thought over those social questions; they have always existed as they are and ... and I have not thought about them. But I can feel, with my feminine instinct, that it is beautiful of you to feel like that, Othomar."

She took his hand and pressed it; her face lit up with a smile. Then she looked, pensively, into the dark landscape beneath them and she shivered.

"It's turning chilly," he said. "We had better go in, Valérie; you'll catch cold here."

She just felt at her bare neck:

"Presently," she said.

They glanced down, at the murmuring Danube. A mist began to rise from the river and filled the valley as it were with light strips of muslin.

"Come," he urged.

"Look," she said. "How deep that is, is it not?"

He looked down:

"Yes," he replied.

"Don't you feel giddy?" she asked.

He looked at her anxiously:

"No, not giddy; at least, not at once...."

"Othomar," she said, in a whisper, "I once sat here for a whole evening. I kept on looking down; it was darker than now and I saw nothing but blackness and it kept on roaring through those black depths. It was the evening after our engagement was decided. I felt such pain, I suffered so! I thought that I had won a victory over myself, but they left me no peace and the only use of my victory was to give me strength to do battle again. The news that I was to be your wife came as unexpectedly ... as my great sorrow came! Then I felt so weak because it overwhelmed me so, because they left me no peace. Oh, they were so cruel, they did not leave me a moment to recover my breath! I had to go on again, on! Then I felt weak. I thought that I should never overcome my weakness. I sat here for hours, looking at the Danube. It made me giddy.... At last I thought that I had made up my mind ... to throw myself down.... I already saw myself floating away, there, there, down there, right round the castle.... Why did I not do it? I believe because of ... of him, Othomar. I loved him, I love him _now_, though I ought to have more pride. I would not punish him by committing suicide. He is so weak. I know him: it would have haunted him all his life long!... Then ... then, Othomar, I ran away and I prayed! I no longer knew what to do!"

She hid her face full of anguish in her hands, with a great sob. His eyes had filled with tears; he saw how she trembled. He threw a terrified side-glance at the deep stream below, which roared as though calling....

"Valérie," he stammered, in alarm; "for God's sake let us go in. It's too cold here and ... and...."

She looked at him anxiously too, with haggard eyes:

"Yes, let us go, Othomar!" she whispered. "I am getting frightened here: we have that in our family; there is still so much romance flowing in our veins...."

She took his arm; they went indoors together. But, before entering the suite of anterooms that led to the reception-rooms, she detained him for yet a moment:

"I don't know whether we shall see each other alone again before you return to Lipara. And I still wanted to thank you for something...."

"For what?" he asked.

"For ... something that Aunt Olga told me. For ... sparing me at Altseeborgen. Thank you, Othomar, thank you...."

She put her arm around his neck and gave him a kiss. He kissed her in return.

And they exchanged their first caress.

2

The next day the imperial family of Liparia travelled back from Sigismundingen to Lipara. The reception at the central station was most hearty; the town was covered with bunting; in the evening there were popular rejoicings. The officers of the various army-corps gave the crown-prince banquets in honour of his betrothal. The Archduchess Valérie's portraits were exposed in the windows of all the picture-shops; the papers contained long articles full of jubilation.

It was a few hours before the dinner given by the officers of the throne-guards to their imperial colonel when Othomar was, as it were suddenly, overcome by a strange sensation. He was in his writing-room, felt rather giddy and had to sit down. The giddiness was slight, but lasted a long time; for a long time the room seemed to be slowly trying to turn round him and not to succeed; and this gave a painful impression of resistance on the part of its lifeless furniture. One of Othomar's hands rested on his thigh, the other on the ruff of the collie which had laid its head upon his knee. He remained sitting, bending forward.

When the giddiness had passed, he retained a strange lightness in his head, as though something had been taken out of it. He leant back cautiously; the collie, half-asleep, dreamily opened its eyes and then dozed off again, its head upon Othomar's knee, under his hand. An irresistible fatigue crept up Othomar's limbs, as though they were sinking in soft mud. It surprised him greatly, this feeling; and, looking sideways at the clock, without moving his head, lest he should bring on the giddiness again, he calculated that he had an hour and a half before dinner. This prospective interval relieved him and he remained sitting, as though calculating his fatigue: whether it would pass, whether it would leave his body.

It lasted a long time, so long indeed that he doubted whether he would be able to go. When three-quarters of an hour had passed, he pressed the bell which stood near him on the table. Andro entered.

"Andro...." he began, without continuing.

"Does your highness wish to dress? Everything is put out...."

Othomar just patted the dog's head, as it still lay dozing motionless against his knee.

"Is your highness unwell?"

"A little giddy, Andro; it is passing off already."

"But is your highness right in going? Had I not better send for Prince Dutri?"

Othomar shook his head decidedly and rose:

"No, I'm late as it is, Andro. Come, help me with my things...."

And he entered his dressing-room.

He appeared at the dinner, but made excuses to the officers for his evident languor. He just joined in the toasts by raising his glass, with a smile. It struck them all that he looked very ill, emaciated, hollow-eyed and white as chalk in his white-and-gold uniform. Immediately after dinner he returned to the Imperial, without accompanying them to the Imperial Jockey Club, the club of the _jeunesse dorée_.

He slept heavily; a misty dream hovered through his night. The man who had tried to murder him at Zanti's grinned at him with clenched fists; then the scene changed to the Gothlandic sea and he rowed Valérie along, but, however hard he rowed, the three towers of the castle always drew farther away, unapproachable....

When he awoke, it was already past eight. He reflected that it was too late for his usual morning ride and remained lying where he was. He rang for Andro:

"Why didn't you wake me at seven o'clock?"

"Your highness was sleeping so soundly, I dared not; your highness was not well yesterday...."

"And so you just let me sleep? Very well.... Send word to her majesty ... that I am not well."

The man looked at him anxiously:

"What is the matter with your highness?"

"I don't know, Andro ... I am a little tired. Where's Djalo?"

"Here, highness...."

The collie ran in noisily, put its great paws on the camp-bed, wriggled its haunches wildly to and fro as it wagged its tail....

Then, suddenly, it lay down quietly beside the bed.

The empress sent back to say that she would come at once; she was not yet dressed.... With calm, open eyes Othomar lay waiting for her.

She entered at last, a little agitated with anxiety. She questioned him, but learnt nothing from his vague, smiling replies. She laid her hand on his forehead, felt his pulse and could not make up her mind whether he had any fever. There was typhoid about: she was afraid of it....

The physicians-in-ordinary were called and relieved her mind: there was no fever. The prince seemed generally tired; he had doubtless over-exerted himself lately. He must rest....

The emperor was astonished: the prince had just been resting and had stayed on for weeks at Altseeborgen. What had been the use of it then!

The rumour ran through the palace, the town, the country, through Europe, that the Duke of Xara was keeping his room because of a slight indisposition. The physicians issued a simple and very reassuring bulletin.

However, in the afternoon Othomar got up and even dressed himself, but not in uniform. He had had some lunch in his bedroom and now went to Princess Thera's apartments. She sat drawing; with her was a lady-in-waiting, the young Marchioness of Ezzera.

The princess was surprised to see her brother:

"What! Is that you? I thought you were in bed!..."

"No, I'm a little better...."

He bowed to the marchioness, who had risen and curtseyed.

"Won't you go on with the portrait?" asked Othomar.

Thera looked at him:

"You're looking so pale, poor boy. Perhaps I'd better not. It tires you so, that sitting, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sometimes, a little...."

They were now standing before the portrait; the marchioness had retired, as she always did when the brother and sister were together. The painting was half-covered with a silk cloth, which Thera pulled aside: it was already a young head full of expression, in which life began to gleam behind the black, melancholy eyes, and painted with broad, firm brushwork, with much reflection of outside light, which fell upon one side of the face and brought it into relief, throwing it forward out of the shadow in the background.

"Is it almost finished?" asked Othomar.

"Yes, but you've kept me waiting awfully long for the final touches: just think, you've been away for four months. I haven't been able to work at it all that time. But, you know ... you've changed. If only I shan't have to leave it like this. It's no longer like you...."

"It'll begin to be like me again, when I'm looking a little better!" answered Othomar.

But the princess became rather nervous; she suddenly drew the silk cloth over it again....

Othomar did not appear at dinner; he went to bed early. The next day the doctors found him very listless. He was up but not dressed; he lay in his dressing-gown on the sofa in his room, with the collie at his feet. He complained to the empress that he had such a queer feeling in his head, as though it were about to open and pour out all its contents.

For days this condition remained unchanged: a total listlessness, a total loss of appetite, a visible exhaustion.... The empress sat by his side as he lay on his sofa staring through the open windows into the green depths of the park of plane-trees. The birds chirped outside; sometimes Berengar's small, shrill voice sounded among them, as he played with a couple of his little friends. The empress read aloud, but it tired Othomar, it made his head ache....

After a long conversation between the three doctors and the emperor and empress, Professor Barzia was summoned from Altara for a consultation: the professor was a nerve-specialist of European fame.

In the emperor's room the emperor, the empress and Count Myxila sat waiting for the result of the examination and the subsequent consultation. It lasted long. They did not speak while they waited: the empress sat staring before her with her quiet expression of acquiescence; the emperor walked irritably to and fro. The old chancellor, with his stern, proud face and bald head, stood pensively near the window.

Then the doctors were announced. They appeared, Professor Barzia leading the way, the others following. The empress fancied that she read the worst on the professor's pale, rigid features; one of the physicians, however, nodded his big, kind head compassionately from behind his colleague, to reassure her.

"Well?" asked the emperor.

"We have carefully examined his imperial highness, sir," the professor began. "The prince is quite free from organic disease, though his constitution is generally delicate."

"What's wrong with him then?" asked Oscar.

"The prince's nervous system seems to us, sir, to have undergone an alarming strain."

"His nerves? But he's never nervous, he's always calm," exclaimed the emperor, stubbornly.

"All the more reason, sir, to appreciate the prince's self-restraint. His highness has evidently kept himself going for a long time; and the effort has been too much for him at last. He is calm now, as your majesty says. But his calmness does not alter the fact that his nerves are completely run down. His highness has clearly been overtaxing his strength."

"And in what way?" asked the emperor, haughtily.

"That, sir, would no doubt be better known to those at court than to me, who come fresh from my study and my hospitals. Your majesty will be able to answer that question yourself. I can only give you a few indications. His highness told me that he remembered sometimes feeling those fits of giddiness and exhaustion even before the great floods in the north. That was in March. It is now September. I imagine that his highness has been leading a very active life in the meantime?"

The emperor made movements with his eyebrows as if he could not understand: tremulous motions of his powerful head, with its fleece of silvering hair.

"The journey to the north may in fact have affected his highness, professor," the empress began.

She was sitting haughtily upright, in her plain dark dress. Her face was expressionless, her eyes were cold. She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though she were not a mother.

"His highness is very sensitive to impressions," she continued, "and he received a good many at Altara that were likely to shock him."

The professor made a slight movement of the head:

"I remember, ma'am, seeing his highness at the identification of the corpses in the fields," he said. "His highness _was_ very much affected...."

"But to what does all this tend?" asked the emperor, still recalcitrant.

"It tends to this, sir, that his highness has presumably allowed himself no rest since that time...."

"His highness has allowed himself months of rest!" exclaimed the emperor.

"Will your majesty permit us to cast our eyes backwards for a moment? After the very fatiguing journey in the north, the prince returned straight to conditions of political excitement--Lipara was then under martial law--and afterwards came the bustle of a festival time, when the King and Queen of Syria were here...."

The emperor shrugged his shoulders.

"After that, the prince, acting on the advice of my respected colleagues, went on a sea-voyage to restore his health. No doubt his highness then enjoyed some days of rest; but the great hunting-trips in which he took part with Prince Herman were beyond a doubt too much for his highness' strength. Now, quite recently, his highness has been betrothed: this may have caused him some excitement. I am casually mentioning a few of the main facts, sir. I know nothing of the prince's inner life: if I knew something of that, it would certainly make many things much easier for me. But this is certain: his highness has from day to day led a too highly agitated existence, whatever the agitations may have been, great or small. That his highness did not collapse earlier is no doubt due to an uncommon power of self-control, of which I believe the prince himself to be unconscious, and an uncommon sense of duty, which is also quite spontaneous in his highness. These are high qualities, sir, in a future ruler...."

A faint flush dyed the empress' cheeks; a milder expression suffused the coldness of her features.

"And what is your advice, professor?" she asked.

"That his highness should take an indefinite rest, ma'am."

"His highness' marriage was fixed for next month," remarked the empress, in an enquiring tone.

Professor Barzia's face became quite white and rigid.

"It would be simply inexcusable, if his highness' marriage were to take place next month," he said, with his even, oracular voice.

"Postponed, then?" asked the emperor, with suppressed rage.

"Without doubt, sir," replied the professor, with cool determination.

"My dear professor," the emperor growled between his teeth, with a pretence of geniality, "you speak of rest and of rest and of rest. Good God, I tell you, the prince has _had_ rest, months and months of it!... Do I ever rest so long? Life is movement; and government is movement. We can't allow ourselves to rest. Why should a young man like the prince be always resting? I never remember resting like that, when I was crown-prince! He may not be as strong as I am, but yet he is of our race! Excitement, you say! Good God, what excitement? Political excitement? That fell to _my_ share, not the prince's! And I had no need of rest after it. And has a prince to go and rest when he gets engaged to be married? Really, professor, this is carrying hygiene beyond all limits!"

"Sir, your majesty has done me the honour to ask my opinion of the prince's condition. I have given that opinion to the best of my knowledge."

"It's rest, then?"

"Undoubtedly, sir."

"But how long do you want him to rest?"

"I am not able to fix a date, sir."

"How long do you want his marriage postponed?"

"Indefinitely, sir."

The emperor paced the room; something unusual passed over his powerful features, a look of anguish....

"That's impossible," he muttered, curtly.

All were silent.

"It's impossible," he, repeated, dully.

"Then his highness will marry, sir," said Barzia.

The emperor stood still:

"What do you mean?" he asked, gruffly.

"That nothing can prevail with your majesty in this most important matter ... except your own sense of what is right and reasonable."

The emperor's breath came in short gasps between his full, sensual lips; his veins swelled thick on his low, Roman forehead; his strong fists were clenched. No one had ever seen Oscar like this before; nor had any one ever dared so to address him....

"Explain yourself more clearly," he thundered into the professor's rigid face.

Barzia did not move a muscle:

"If his highness is married next month ... it means his death."

The empress remained sitting stiff and upright, but she turned very pale, shuddered and closed her eyes as though she felt giddy.

"His death?" echoed the emperor, in consternation.

"Or worse," rejoined Barzia.

"Worse?"

"The extinction of your majesty's posterity."

The emperor rapped out a furious oath and struck his fist on the huge writing-table. The bronze ornaments on it rang. Myxila drew a step nearer:

"Sir," he said, "there is nothing lost. If I understand Professor Barzia, his highness' illness is only temporary and is curable."

"Certainly, excellency," replied Barzia. "So long as it is not forced to become incurable and chronic."

Oscar bit his lips convulsively. His glittering eyes stood out small and cruel. It struck Myxila how much, at this moment, he resembled a portrait of Wenceslas the Cruel.

"Professor," he hissed, "we thank you. Stay at Lipara till to-morrow, so as to observe his highness once more."

"I will obey your majesty's commands," said Barzia.

He bowed, the physicians bowed; they withdrew. Left alone with the empress and the imperial chancellor, Oscar no longer restrained his rage. Like a beast foaming at the mouth, he walked fiercely up and down with heavy steps, gurgling as though the breath refused to come through his constricted throat:

"Oh!" he gnashed between his teeth, bursting out at last. "That boy, that boy!... He's not even fit to get married! His duchess: he was able to get married to her! And that boy, oh, that boy is to succeed me, _me!_..."

A furious laugh of contempt grated from between his large, white teeth, with biting irony.

The empress rose:

"Count Myxila," she said, trembling, "may I beg your excellency to come with me?"

She turned to leave the room. Myxila, hesitating, was already following her to the door.

"What for?" roared the emperor. "What's the reason of that? I have something more to say to Myxila."

The empress gave the emperor a look as cold as ice:

"It is my express wish, sir, that Count Myxila should go with me," she said, in the same trembling voice. "I think your majesty needs solitude. Your majesty is saying things which a father must not even think and which a sovereign must certainly not say in the presence of a subject, not even in that of one of his highest subjects...."

The emperor tried to interrupt her.

"Your majesty," continued the empress, with a haughty tremor, cutting the words from him with her icy-cold, trembling voice as though with a knife, "is saying these things of the future Emperor of Lipara ... and I wish _no_ subject, not even Count Myxila, to hear such things; and, moreover, your majesty is saying these things of _my son_: therefore I do not wish to hear them myself, sir! Excellency, I request you once more to come with me."

"Go then!" shouted the emperor, like a madman. "Go, both of you: yes, leave me alone, leave me alone!"

He walked furiously up and down, flung the chairs one against the other, roared like an angry caged lion. He took a bronze statue from a bracket in front of a tall mirror that rose to the ceiling in gilt arabesques:

"There then!" he lashed out, while his passion seemed to seethe mistily in his bewildered brain, to shoot red lightning-flashes from his bloodshot eyes, to drive him mad because of his impotence against the senseless fate and logic of circumstance.

Like an athlete he brandished the heavy statue through the air; like a child he hurled it at the great mirror, which fell clattering in a flicker of shreds.

The empress and Myxila had left the room.

3

The ordinary court-life continued; the empress' first drawing-room took place. The reception-rooms leading to the great presence-chamber were lit up, though it was day-time; the ladies entered, handed their cards to the grand chamberlain, signed their names and waited until their titles were called out by the masters of ceremonies. They stood in low-necked dresses; the long white veils fell in misty folds of gauze from the feathers and jewelled tiaras. It was the first display of the new costumes of the season, the fashion which had sprung into life and now moved and had its being; but the crowded rooms seemed but the antechambers of that display and the upgathered trains gave an impression of preparation for the solemn second, the momentary appearance before her majesty.

The Duchess of Yemena was waiting, her train also thrown over her arm, with the two marchionesses her stepdaughters, whom she was about to present to the empress, when she saw Dutri, bowing, apologizing, twisting through the expectant ladies, to make way for himself through the crowded room:

"Dutri," she beckoned, as he did not seem to perceive her.

He reached her after some difficulty, bowed, paid his compliments to the little marchionesses. They stood with stiff little faces, frightened, round eyes and tight-closed mouths; and the lines of their girlish figures displayed the shyness of novices. With an awkward grace, they kept arranging their heavy court-trains over their arms. They just smiled at Dutri's words; then they looked stiff again, compared the other ladies' dresses with their own.

"Dutri," whispered the duchess, "how is the prince?"

"Just the same," the equerry whispered in reply. "Terribly melancholy...."

"Dutri," she murmured, sinking her voice still lower, "would there be no chance for me to see him?"

Dutri started in dismay:

"How do you mean, Alexa? When?"

"Presently, after the drawing-room...."

"But that is impossible, Alexa! The prince sees no one but their majesties and the princess; he talks to nobody, not even to his chamberlains, not even to us...."

"Dutri," she insisted, with her hand on his arm, "do your best. Help me. Ask for an interview for me. If you help me ... I will help you too...."

He looked at her expectantly.

"What do you think of Hélène?" she asked.

"I think Eleonore prettier," he smiled.

"Well, come to us oftener, to my special days; we never see anything of you. I will prepare the duke...."

She dangled the rich match before his eyes: he blinked them, as he continued to look at her and smile.

"But then you must help me!" she continued, with a gentle threat.

"I will do my best, Alexa, but I can promise nothing," he just had time to reply. "Wait for me after the drawing-room, in one of the other rooms," he whispered, accompanying her for a few steps.

All this time the titles were being cried, ceremoniously, slowly; the ladies moved on, dropped their trains, blossomed out.

"Her excellency the Duchess of Yemena, Countess of Vaza; their excellencies the Marchionesses of Yemena...."

The duchess moved on, the girls followed her, crimson, with beating hearts. They passed through a long gallery, dropping their trains; at the door of the presence-room, before they entered, stood flunkeys who spread out the heavy court-mantles.

"Her excellency the Duchess of ..."

The titles rang out for the second time, this time through the presence-chamber and with a sound of greater reverence, because they echoed in the listening ears of welcoming majesty.

The duchess and the marchionesses entered. Between the wide hangings of dark-blue velvet, on which glittered the cross of St. Ladislas, and under the canopy supported by gilt pillars, sat the empress, like an idol, glittering in the shadow in her watered-silver brocade, the ermine imperial mantle falling in heavy folds to her feet, a small diadem sparkling upon her head. To the right of the throne, on a low stool, sat the Princess Thera, on the left stood the mistress of the robes, the Countess of Threma; round about, on either side, a crowd of ladies-in-waiting, court-officials, equerries, maids of honour, grooms of the bed-chamber....

The duchess made her curtsey, approached the throne and with great reverence, as though with diffident lips, touched the jewelled finger-tips, which the empress held out like a live relic. Then the duchess took two steps backwards; the marchionesses, one after the other, followed her example, surprising everybody by the attractive freshness of their first court-movements, in which the touch of awkwardness became a charm. Then the bows, in a long ritual of withdrawal, backwards. They disappeared through other doors, found themselves in a long gallery, entered other reception-rooms, where people stood waiting for their carriages. And the two girls looked at each other, seeking each other's impressions, still crimson with the excitement in their vain little hearts and strangely surprised at the incomprehensible briefness of this first and all-important moment of their lives as grown-up people, as ladies accompanying their mamma to the Imperial, where they would thenceforth lead their existence. For how many months beforehand they had thought and dreamed of this moment; now, suddenly, with surprising quickness, it was over....

The duchess chucked Hélène under the chin, put Eleonore's veil straight, said that they had curtseyed beautifully, that she had herself even noticed how pleased the Countess of Threma had been with them. Then she chatted busily with the other ladies, introduced the little marchionesses, promised visits. Then she turned to a flunkey:

"Go and see where my carriage is and tell it to leave the rank and drive up last. Here...."

She gave him a gold coin; the flunkey disappeared. A nervous impatience seized the duchess; she looked out anxiously for Dutri. At last her eyes caught sight of him; he came up with his fatuous fussiness:

"Alexa, it's impossible...."

"Have you asked the prince?"

"No, not yet; there's the question, to begin with, whether he'll see _me_. But then ... how am I to take you to him? There are always servants hanging about in the doorways, to say nothing of the guards and halberdiers; in the anterooms you run up against a chamberlain at any moment. Really, it is impossible."

She grew angry:

"Begin by asking him. We'll see later how we're to get to him."

Dutri made graceful gestures of despair:

"But, Alexa, can't you really understand ... that it is impossible?..."

She made no reply, not wishing to reflect, her head filled with her stubborn fixed idea to see the prince, to insist on seeing him. And, suddenly, turning to him:

"Very well, if you don't care to do anything for me, you needn't think I shall help you in _any_ way."

Her nervous, angry voice sounded louder than her first whispered words: the two girls heard her.

"Alexa," he besought her, gently.

"No, no," she resisted, curtly.

He thought of his debts and of Eleonore:

"I'll try," he whispered, in despair.

She promptly rewarded him with a smile; he went, hurried away again, with his eternal air of fussy importance, because of his young imperial master, who was so sadly ill. In the anteroom he found the chamberlain on duty:

"Would the prince be willing to see me?"

The chamberlain shrugged his shoulders:

"I'll ask," he said.

He speedily returned: the prince had sent word that Dutri could come in.

Dutri entered. Othomar lay on a couch covered with tiger-skins, in front of his writing-table. He had grown thinner; his eyes were hollow, his complexion was wan; his neck protruded frail and wasted from the loose turn-down collar of his silk shirt, over which he wore a velvet jacket. In his hand he held an open book. Djalo, the collie, lay on the floor.

Dutri the voluble began to press his request in rapid sentences following close upon one another's heels....

"The duchess?" repeated Othomar, faintly. "No, no...."

Dutri galloped on, simulated melancholy, employed words of gentle, insinuating sadness. Othomar's face assumed an expression which was strange to it and quite new: it was as though the melancholy of his features were crystallizing into a stubborn obstinacy, a silent doggedness.

"No," he said once more, while his voice, too, sounded dogged and obstinate. "Make my apologies to the duchess, Dutri. And where ... where would she wish to see me?"

"I did not fail to point out this difficulty to her excellency; but perhaps, if your highness would be so gracious ... one might nevertheless...."

Othomar closed his eyes and threw his head back; his hand fell loosely upon the collie's head. He made no further reply and his lips were tightly compressed.

Dutri still hesitated: what could he do, what should he tell Alexa?...

But the door opened and the empress entered. The drawing-room was over; she had put off her robes and the crown, but she still wore her stiff, heavy dress of silver brocade. She looked coldly at Dutri and bowed her head slightly, as a sign for him to go: the equerry beat a confused retreat, without his usual tact.

Othomar half-rose from his couch:

"Mamma!..."

She sat down beside him, stroked his forehead with her hand:

"How do you feel?"

He smiled and blinked with his eyes, without replying.

"What was Dutri doing here?"

"He wanted ... Oh, mamma, never mind, don't ask me!... How beautiful you look! May I, too, kiss your hand?"

Winningly, jestingly he took her hand and kissed it. She took his book from his fingers, read the treasonable title:

"Are you reading again, Othomar?... You know you mustn't read so much. And why all these strange books?..."

On the table lay Lassalle, Marx, works by Russian nihilists, a pamphlet by Bakounine, pamphlets by Zanti.... The little work which he was reading was by a well-known Liparian anarchist and entitled, _Injustice by the Grace of God;_ it overthrew everything: religion and the state; it addressed itself directly to the crowned tyrants in power; it addressed itself directly to Oscar.

"Is it to get back your health, Othomar, that you read this sort of thing?" she asked, in a tone of pained reproach.

"But, mamma, I must see what it is that they want...."

"And what do they want?"

He looked pensively before him:

"I don't know what they want, I can't understand them. They employ very long sentences, the same sentences over and over again, with the same words over and over again. I can just make out that they disapprove of everything that exists and want something different. But yet sometimes...."

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes they say terrible things, terrible because they sound so true, mamma. When they speak of God and prove that He does not exist, when they describe our whole system of government as a monstrosity and reject all authority, including our own.... They sometimes speak like children who have suddenly learnt to talk and to judge; and then sometimes they suddenly speak clearly; and then very primitive thoughts arise in me: if God exists, why is there any injustice and misery; and our authority: on what right is that founded? O God, mamma, what right have we to reign over others, over millions? Tell me--but argue from the beginning: don't argue backwards; don't begin with us: begin with our first rulers, our usurpers--what right had they? And does ours merely spring from theirs? Oh, these problems, these simple problems: who can solve them, my God, who can solve them?..."

Elizabeth suddenly turned pale. She stared at him as though he had gone mad:

"Who gives you these books?" she asked, harshly, hoarsely, anxiously.

"Dutri, Leoni; Andro has also fetched me some."

"They're mad!" exclaimed the empress, rising. "Why do you ask for them?"

"I want to know, mamma...."

"Othomar," she cried, "will you do what I ask?"

"Yes, mamma," he replied, gently, "but sit down again and ... and don't be angry. And ... and don't say 'Othomar.' And ... and go and change your dress: oh, I can't see you in that dress; you are so far from me; your voice doesn't reach me and I daren't kiss you: you are not my mother, you are the empress! Mamma, O mamma!..."

His voice appealed to her. A powerful emotion awoke in her.

"O my boy!" she cried, with a half-sob breaking in her throat.

"Yes, yes, call me that.... Mamma, let's be quick and find each other again, let us not lose each other. What is your request?"

"Give me all those books."

"I will give them to you; they make me no happier, when all is said!"

"But then why are you unhappy, my boy, my boy?"

"Mamma, look at the world, look at our people, see how they suffer, see how they are oppressed! What shall I ever be able to do for them! I shall always be powerless, in spite of all our power! Oh, it grows so dark in front of me, I can see nothing more, I have no hope; only Utopians have any hope left, but I ... I no longer hope, for I can do nothing, nothing!... O my God, mamma, the whole country is falling upon me and crushing me and I can do nothing, nothing!... I shall have to reign and I shall not be able to, mamma. What am I? A poor sickly boy: how can I become emperor? I don't know why it is, mamma, nor what it comes from, but I don't feel like a future emperor, I feel like a feeble child! I feel like your child, your boy, and nothing more...."

He seemed about to throw himself into her arms, but on the contrary he flung himself backwards, as though he were frightened by her brilliant attire; his head dropped nervelessly on his chest, his arms fell loosely down. She saw his movement: her first feeling was one of regret that she had come to him in court-dress, longing as she did to see him, not allowing herself the time to change. But this regret passed through her as a transient emotion, for it was followed by an intense dizziness, as though a yawning abyss opened at her feet, as though the earth retreated and black nothingness gaped before her. A despair as of utter impotence enveloped her soul. Vaguely she stretched out her arms and threw them round his neck, as though she were groping in the dark, with wandering eyes:

"My boy, don't talk like that any more, because ... when you talk like that, you take away my strength too!" she whispered, in alarm. "For how can it be helped? You must, we all must...."

"Forgive me, mamma, but I ... I shall not be able to. Oh, I see it clearly now! I am not excited, I am calm. I see it, I prophesy it, it can never be...."

"But papa is still so young and so strong, my boy; and, when you grow older...."

"The older I grow, the more impossible it will be, mamma. I was always frightened of it as a child, but I never realized it so desperately as now. No, mamma, it cannot be. Now that I am ill, I have plenty of time to reflect; and I now see before me what the end of all our trouble is bound to be...."

His eyes gazed at the floor in despair; she still half-clung to him, helplessly; a menacing shiver seemed to float through the room.

"Mamma...."

She made no response.

"I must tell you of my resolve...."

"What resolve?..."

"Will you tell it to papa?"

"What, what, Othomar ... my boy?"

"That I can't marry ... Valérie, because...."

"Later, later: you needn't marry yet...."

"No, mamma, I never can, because I...."

She looked at him beseechingly, enquiringly.

"Because I want to abdicate ... my rights ... in favour of ... Berengar...."

She made no reply; feebly she drooped against him, not knowing how to console and cheer him, and softly and plaintively began to sob. It was as though her soul was being flooded with anguish, slowly but persistently, until it brimmed over. She reproached herself with it all. He was her child: the future Emperor of Liparia had derived this weakness from her. And the manifestation of this agonizing mystery of heredity before her despairing eyes deprived her of all her strength, of all her courage, of all her power of acquiescence and resignation.

"Mamma," he repeated.

She sobbed on.

"Don't be so disconsolate.... Berengar will be better than I.... You'll tell papa, won't you?... Or no, never mind, if it costs you too great an effort: I'll tell him myself...."

She started up nervously from her despair:

"O my God, no! Othomar, no! Don't talk to him about it: he is so passionate, he would ... he would murder you! Promise me that you will not talk to him about it! _I_ will tell him--O my God!--_I_ will tell him...."

But a tremor of hope revived within her.

"But, Othomar, I ask you, why do you do this? You are ill now, but you will get better and then ... then you will think differently!"

He gazed out before him: his presentiment quivered through him; he saw his dream again: the streets of Lipara filled with crape, right up to the sky, where it veiled the sunlight. And over his features there passed again that new air of hardness, of dogged obstinacy which made him unrecognizable; he shook his head slowly from side to side, from side to side:

"No, mamma, I shall never think differently. Believe me, it will be better so."

When she saw him like that, her new hope collapsed again and she sobbed once more. Sobbing, she rose; amid her sorrow yawned a void; she was losing something: her son.

"Are you going?" he asked.

She nodded yes, sobbing.

"Do you forgive me?"

She nodded yes again. Then she gave him a smile, a smile full of despair; lacking the strength to kiss him, she went out, still sobbing.

He remained alone and rose from his couch. He stood in the middle of the room; his eyes stared at the collie:

"Why need I give her pain!" he thought.

Everything in his soul hurt him.

"Why did I go on that voyage with Herman?" he asked himself again. "It was in those first days of rest that I began to think so much. And yet Professor Barzia says, 'Rest!' ... What does he know about me? What does one person know about another?... Djalo!" he cried.

The collie ran up, wriggling, joyfully.

"Djalo, what is right? How ought the world to be? Must there be kings and emperors, Djalo, or had we better all disappear?"

The dog looked at him, wagging its tail violently; suddenly it jumped up and licked his face.

"And why, Djalo, need one man always make the other unhappy? Why need princes make their people unhappy? Will life always remain the same, for ages and ages?..."

Othomar sank into a heap on the couch; his hand fell on the dog, which licked it passionately.

"Oh!" he sobbed. "My people, my people!..."

* * * * *

At this moment the last carriages were driving away in the fore-court of the Imperial; the staring crowd, behind the grenadiers, peeped curiously at the pretty ladies glistening through the glass of the state-coaches. The Duchess of Yemena's carriage came last of all.

4

A spirit of gloom seemed to haunt the ringing marble halls of the Imperial, a dim melancholy to stifle the cadences of the voices and their echoes and to hang from the tall ceilings as it had been a heavy web of atmosphere. It was autumn; the first parties were to take place; the first court-ball was given. But it seemed to be given because there was no help for it: it was a slow, official, tedious function. The more intimate circles of the Imperial, those of the Duchess of Yemena and the diplomatic body, regretted the more select assemblies in the smaller rooms of the empress. They looked upon those great balls as necessary inflictions. The empress' smaller dances, however, were always favoured as most charming entertainments. But the empress had decided that they should not take place, because of the illness of the crown-prince. At this first great ball their majesties appeared only for a brief moment, to take part in the imperial quadrille....

Grey ashes fell over the glittering mood of imperial festivity which so short a time ago had been the usual atmosphere of the palace. The dinners, once the glories of day after day, were shortened; only the most necessary invitations were given. The emperor himself maintained a constant mood of sullenness: the army bill for the augmentation of the active forces was still attacked in principle in the house of deputies; and the emperor was resolved at all costs to uphold his minister of war. Moreover, thanks to the dash of childishness that showed through all his energy, he had not recovered from his disappointment at the postponement of the Duke of Xara's marriage. He seemed in a continual state of irritation because his Liparian world would not go as he wanted it to go.