Majesty Part 31

"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 d.u.c.h.ess?" repeated Othomar, faintly. "No, no...."

Dutri galloped on, simulated melancholy, employed words of gentle, insinuating sadness. Othomar's face a.s.sumed 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 t.i.tle:

"Are you reading again, Othomar?... You know you mustn't read so much.

And why all these strange books?..."

On the table lay La.s.salle, 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 ent.i.tled, _Injustice by the Grace of G.o.d;_ 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d exists, why is there any injustice and misery; and our authority: on what right is that founded? O G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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, hoa.r.s.ely, 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed 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...."