Majesty Part 30

"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 pa.s.sion 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 circ.u.mstance.

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 t.i.tles 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess, "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 n.o.body, 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 Helene?" 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 t.i.tles were being cried, ceremoniously, slowly; the ladies moved on, dropped their trains, blossomed out.

"Her excellency the d.u.c.h.ess of Yemena, Countess of Vaza; their excellencies the Marchionesses of Yemena...."

The d.u.c.h.ess moved on, the girls followed her, crimson, with beating hearts. They pa.s.sed 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 d.u.c.h.ess of ..."

The t.i.tles 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess chucked Helene 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 d.u.c.h.ess; 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: