Majesty Part 12

The princes and their suite felt instinctively that a hostile feeling was pa.s.sing through Zanti's peasants. When they asked a question here and there about the sufferings experienced, the answer sounded curt and rough, with a reference to the will of G.o.d, and was always like an echo of Zanti's own words. Pecuniary a.s.sistance seemed uncalled for. And Zanti had really nothing to show. The settlement made a poor impression on Othomar, perhaps because of a sort of mortified sovereignty. He was accustomed always to be approached with respect, as a future majesty; and his sensitiveness was more deeply wounded by Zanti's bluntness, by the surliness of Zanti's peasants, than he himself was willing to admit.

He felt that at this spot they saw in him not the crown-prince who loved his people and wanted to learn how to succour them, but the son of a tyrant, who would act as a tyrant also when his turn came. He felt that, though Zanti called himself the apostle of peace, this peace was not in his disciples; and, when he looked into their rough, sullen faces, he saw hatred gleam luridly from deep, hollow eyes, as with sudden lightning-flashes....

The weight of it all fell heavily upon his chest; his impotence pressed with a world of inconsolable misery and unappeasable grief upon his shoulders, as though to bear him to the ground. It was the misery and grief not of one, but of thousands, millions. Vindictive eyes multiplied themselves around him in a ferment of hatred; each one of his people who asked happiness of him, demanding it and not receiving it, seemed to be there, staring at him with those wide eyes....

He felt himself turning giddy with an immense feeling of helplessness.

He looked for nothing more, this was the end. And he was not surprised at what happened: the man with the brown, hairy, distorted face, who rushed upon him like a nightmare and laid hold of him, full of hatred. A foul, tobacco-laden breath swept over his face, a coa.r.s.e knife in a coa.r.s.e fist flashed towards his throat....

A cry arose. A shot rang out, sharp, determined, with no suspicion of hesitation. The man cursed out a hoa.r.s.e yell, gnashing his teeth in revolt, and struggled, dying. His brains splashed over Othomar, soiling the prince's uniform. And the man plumped down at his feet on the ground, grown limp at once, with relaxed muscles, still clutching the knife in his hairy fingers. All this had happened in a single instant.

It was Von Fest who had fired the shot from a revolver. The colonel drew up his broad figure, looked around him, still held the revolver raised at a threatening slant. The people stood staring, motionless, perplexed by the sudden reality before their eyes.

Zanti, stupefied, gazed at the corpse; then he said, while the startled officers stood by in fussy confusion around the prince:

"Now go and, if you can, go in peace!..."

Full of bitterness, he pointed to the corpse. He shook his head, with the grey locks under the felt hat; tears sprang to the corners of his eyes.

"Thou shalt not kill!" they heard him mutter. "They seem not to know that yet; n.o.body knows it yet!..."

A strange, mad look troubled his normally clear, grey eyes; he seemed for a moment not to know what he should do. Then he went to a tree, caught up the axe and, without taking further notice of the princes, began to hew like a lunatic, blow upon blow....

The officers hurried to their horses. Dutri gave a last look back: near the corpse, now surrounded by peasants, he saw a woman standing; she sobbed, her desperate arms flung to heaven, she howled, she shook her fist at the equerry's turned face, screaming.

Othomar had said nothing. He heard the woman howling behind him. He quivered in every nerve. On the road, preparing to mount, Ducardi asked him, agitatedly:

"Shall we return to Castel Vaza, highness?"

The prince looked at the general haughtily. Quickly the thought flashed through him that the general had strongly opposed his coming here. He shook his head.

Then his eyes sought Von Fest: they glanced up at the colonel under their eyelids, deep-black, moist, almost reproachful.

But he held out his hand:

"Thank you, colonel," he said, in a husky voice.

The colonel pressed the hand which the prince offered him:

"Glad to be of service, highness!" he replied, with soldierly brusqueness.

"And now let us go on to the Zanthos," said Othomar, walking up to his horse.

But the old general could master himself no longer. In these last moments he had felt all his pa.s.sionate love--seated hereditarily, firmly in his blood, of a piece with him, his very soul and all that soul--for the reigning house. His fathers had died for it in battle, without hesitation. And with the mad, wide embrace of his long, powerful old arms, he ran up to Othomar, grateful that he was alive, pressed him as if he would crush him against his breast, until the b.u.t.tons of his uniform scratched Othomar's cheek, and cried, sobbing, under his trembling moustache:

"My prince, my prince, my prince!..."

8

The attempt on Othomar's life was known at Castel Vaza before the princes returned, from peasants of the duke's, who had told the castle-servants long stories of how the prince had been severely wounded. The d.u.c.h.ess had at first refused to believe it; then, in rising anxiety, in the greatest tension and uncertainty, she had walked about the corridors. She had first tried to persuade herself that the people were sure to exaggerate. When she reflected that, in the event of Othomar's being wounded, the princes and the equerries would have returned at once, she became more tranquil and waited patiently.

But the chamberlain, who had been to Vaza, returned in dismay: people were very uneasy in the town, pressing round the doors of the newspaper-offices to read the bulletins, which mentioned the attempt briefly, with the provoking comment that further particulars were not yet to hand. The d.u.c.h.ess realized that by this time the bulletin had also been telegraphed to Lipara; and she feared not only that Othomar had met with harm, but that she herself would lose favour with the empress....

When the d.u.c.h.ess at last, after long watching from a window in the west corridor, saw the princes and their suite come trotting, very small, along a distant road, she could not restrain herself and went to meet them in the courtyard. But she saw that Othomar was unhurt. The Duke of Xara dismounted, smiled, gave her his hand; she kissed it, curtseying, ardently; her tears fell down upon it. The chamberlain approached, a.s.sured Othomar, in the name of all the duke's servants, of their heartfelt grat.i.tude that the Duke of Xara had been spared, by the grace of G.o.d and the succour of St. Ladislas.

Ducardi had not been able to telegraph from anywhere before, but he now sent in all haste to Vaza with a message for the emperor, mentioning at the same time that the prince had calmly resumed the expedition immediately after the attempt upon his life. Dinner took place amid a babel of voices; the d.u.c.h.ess was greatly excited, asked for the smallest details and almost embraced Von Fest. The crown-prince drank to his preserver and every one paid him tribute.

Afterwards Ducardi advised the crown-prince, in an aside, to retire early to rest. The general spoke in a gentle voice; it seemed as though the thought that he might have lost his crown-prince had made him fonder of him. Herman too pressed Othomar to go to bed.

He himself had grown calm, but a vague feeling of la.s.situde had come over all his being: he had even drunk Von Fest's health in a strangely weary voice. He now took their advice, withdrew, undressed himself; his soiled uniform, which he had changed before dinner, still hung over a chair; he shuddered to think that he had worn it the whole afternoon:

"Those things!" he said to Andro, who was still quite confused and, nervously weeping, was tidying up. "Burn them, or throw them away, throw them away."

Othomar flung himself in his dressing-gown on a couch in the room adjoining his bedroom. This was also an historical apartment, with tapestry on the walls representing scenes from the history of Lipara: the Emperor Berengar I., triumphantly riding into Jerusalem, with his crusaders holding aloft their white banners; the Empress Xaveria, seated on horseback in her golden armour before the walls of Altara, falling backwards, struck dead by a Turkish arrow....

The prince lay staring at them. A deadly calm seemed to make him feel nothing, care about nothing. In his own mind he reviewed the whole historical period from Berengar to Xaveria. He knew the dates; the scenes pa.s.sed cloudily before his eyes as though tapestries were being unrolled, kaleidoscopically, with the faded colours of old artwork. He saw himself again, a small boy, in the Imperial, in an austere room, diligently learning his lessons; he saw his masters, relieving one another: languages, history, political economy, international law, strategy; it had all heaped itself upon his young brain, piled itself up, built itself up like a tower. By way of change, his military education--drilling, riding, fencing--conducted by General Ducardi, who praised him or grumbled at him, or growled at the sergeants who instructed him. He had never been able to learn mathematics, had never understood a word of algebra; in many subjects he had always remained weak: natural philosophy and chemistry, for instance. For a time he had taken great pleasure in the study of mineralogy and zoology and botany; and afterwards he had shown some enthusiasm for astronomy. Then came the university and his legal studies....

He remembered his little vanities as a child and as a boy, when in his ninth year he had become a lieutenant in the throne-guards; when later he had received the Garter from the Queen of England and the Black Eagle from the German Emperor and the Golden Fleece from the Queen-regent of Spain. With such minor vanity there had always been mingled a certain dread of possible obligations which the Garter or the Eagle might imply: obligations which hovered vaguely before his eyes, which he dared not define and still less ask about of Ducardi, of his father. Gradually these threatening obligations had become so heavy and now, now they were the weights that bore upon his chest....

The weights.... But he did not stir, feeling strangely calm. Then he thought of Von Fest, of the d.u.c.h.ess.... Yesterday, her kiss.... He had lain swooning on her shoulder and she had kissed him and long watched him with pa.s.sionate looks. And all those stories of the equerries....

Then it came as with a fierce wave foaming over his absolute calmness....

Why had that man hated him, tried to murder him, tried to slay him like a beast?... Pride welled up in him, pride and despair. The man had touched him, soiled him with his breath, him, the crown-prince, the Duke of Xara! He gnashed his teeth with rage. That was a thing which Berengar I. would never have suffered! Off with his head! Off with his head!...

Oh, that populace which did not know, which did not feel, which pressed up against him, seething and foaming against the throne, which terrified his mother, however haughtily she might look beyond it into the distance, with her imperial composure!...

How he hated it, hated it, with all the hatred of his house for those who were now free and were yet once its slaves! How he would have them shot down, have them shot down when he came into power!...

He looked at Xaveria: she herself was shot down, the haughty amazon; backwards she fell, wounded by the arrow of a Turkish soldier. And he, that morning, if Von Fest had not....

He threw himself back wildly, buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

No, no, oh no! He would not shoot them down, not kill them, not hate them! He was not like that: he might be like that for a moment, but he was not like that! He was fond of his people; he was so grateful when they rejoiced, when he was able to help them. Surely he would never have them shot on! He was only growing excited now. What was there in his soul for all of them, for those millions, of whom he had perhaps seen only a few thousands and knew only a few hundreds, but one great love, which threw out arms to them in every direction, to embrace them? Had he not felt this in that black night on the Therezia Square? Were hatred and violence his? No, oh no! He was soft, perhaps too soft, too irresolute, but he would grow older, he would grow stronger; he would wish to and he would make all of them happy. Oh, if they only cared for him, if they only loved him with their great ma.s.s of surging, black, frothing humanity, a sable Milky Way of swarming souls, each soul a spark, like his own; oh, if they only loved him! But they must not hate him, not look at him with those bloodshot eyes of hatred, not aim at his throat with those coa.r.s.e, hairy fingers, not try to murder him, O G.o.d, not try to slay him like a bullock, with a common knife, him, their future sovereign!...

And he felt that they did not belong to him and did not know him and did not understand him and did not love him, all of them, and that they hated him merely out of instinct, because he was born upon the throne!

And his despair because of all this spanned out, immense, a desert of black night, which he felt eternities wide around him; and he sobbed, sobbed, like an inconsolable child, because this was as it was and would become more desperate with each day that brought him nearer to his future as emperor and to their future: the mournful day which would rise upon the destruction of the old world....

Then there came a knock at a little door; and the door was softly opened....

"Who's there?" he asked, startled, feeling the breach of etiquette, not understanding why Andro had not come through the anteroom to announce whoever it might be.

"If your highness permits me...."

He recognized the d.u.c.h.ess' soft voice, rose, went to the door:

"Come in, d.u.c.h.ess...."

She entered, hesitatingly; she had thrown a long cloak over her bare shoulders to go through the chilly pa.s.sages of the castle....