On the Heights Part 65

The queen, who was now permitted to leave her apartment, spent much of her time in the winter-garden, where the last fete had been celebrated.

The trees and flowers were again in their wonted places; the fountains plashed, the fish swam about in the marble basin, and the birds twittered in their great cages. Walpurga and the prince were allowed to remain with the queen for hours at a time. All vied with each other in offering her delicate attentions which were inspired by something more than a mere sense of what was due her rank. Irma had shown so much devotion to the queen that the latter felt like begging her pardon. She often had the words upon her lips, but could not utter them. Friendship suffers from mere suspicion, and the queen well knew that she was looked upon as weak-minded and vacillating. She determined that she would be thus no longer. She felt that the great mark of a strong character is to prevent the world from knowing every change and phase of thought and feeling, and to give it naught but results.

No one should ever know what had so troubled her heart. She would be strong.

She kept Irma about her much of the time, and the hours they spent in the green, flowering, winter-garden, reading, working, conversing or singing, were serene and blissful.

Irma, who was an excellent reader, read Goethe's Ta.s.so to them. It accorded with their present mood, and one day, Irma said:

"Your Majesty resembles Princess Leonora in many things. You have the advantage, however, of being able to accomplish in a few weeks what, in her case, it required years to bring about."

"I don't understand you."

"What I mean is, that long confinement to the sickroom and careful nursing are apt to produce, in the invalid, a certain sensitiveness and an almost imperceptible change in manner. It is well to escape from this hothouse mood into the open air; to be once again among the trees which are proof against all weathers, and to inhale the fresh, life-giving breeze."

The king was often present during these readings, and frequently felt moved to express his thoughts on the weightiest and most beautiful pa.s.sages in Ta.s.so. Irma often trembled. Every word she uttered seemed wicked. She felt that she no longer had a right to speak of pure and holy subjects, but the king was so cheerful and unconstrained that she speedily dismissed all concern.

"You are spoiling me, and will make me quite vain," said the queen, one day. "I have another wish. I long to go from flowers to works of art. I often feel like visiting the picture-gallery and the collection of antiques. When we move among the achievements of art the deepest impression we receive is, that human beings who lived long ago, have bequeathed their best possessions to us, and that eyes long since closed in death, look down upon us with their undying glances, and are still with us."

At the words "undying glances," the king and Irma looked at each other with involuntary surprise. To them, the words were suggestive. Irma composed herself and replied:

"I cannot help joining in Your Majesty's wish: from flowers and trees to works of art! Surrounded by pictures and statues, the soul dwells in an ideal atmosphere; life everlasting environs us; we inhale the very breath of genius which, although its possessors may have vanished from earth, endures for ever. When I was forced to the conclusion that I was without real artistic talent, I envied the monarchs to whom is vouchsafed the happiness of encouraging talent and genius in others.

That is a great compensation."

"How beautifully she interprets everything," said the queen, addressing her husband; and it was with a mingled expression of delight and pain that the king regarded the two ladies. What was pa.s.sing in his mind? He admired and loved Irma; he respected and loved his wife. He was untrue to both. Irma and the queen went through the galleries and the collection of antiques, and would sit for hours, looking at the pictures and statues. Every remark of the queen's was met by an observation of Irma's, which was in full accord with hers.

"When I look at and listen to you two," said the king, "and think of where you resemble each other and where you differ, it seems as if I saw the daughters of Schiller and Goethe before me."

"How singular!" interposed the queen, and the king continued:

"Goethe saw the world through brown, and Schiller through blue eyes; and so it is with you two. You look through blue eyes, like Schiller's, and our friend through brown eyes, like those of Goethe's."

"It won't do to let any one know that we flatter each other so," said the queen, smiling. Irma looked up to the ceiling, where painted angels were hovering in the air. There is a world of infinite s.p.a.ce where no one can supplant another; it is only in the everyday world that exclusiveness exists, thought she to herself.

The more the queen gained in strength, the more marked was the change from a subdued, to a bright and cheerful vein.

It seemed as if Irma's wish was about to be realized. The life-renewing power of spring which reanimates the trees and the plants, seemed to extend its influence over human life. It seemed as if the past were buried and forgotten.

It was on the first mild day of spring, and they were walking together in the palace garden, when the queen said:

"I can't imagine that there ever was a time when we did not know each other, dear Irma." She stopped and looked into Irma's eyes with an expression radiant with joy. "You once told me about a Greek philosopher," said she, addressing Doctor Gunther, who was walking after them with the captain of the palace-guard, "who thought that our souls had a previous existence, and that our best experience, in this world, is merely the recollection of what we have experienced or imagined to ourselves in some earlier state of being."

"Without accepting this fanciful theory," replied Gunther, "there is much in life which may be regarded as destiny. I believe that all living truths which we take up into ourselves, and which thus, as it were, become a part of our being, were intended for us. Our mind, the whole const.i.tution of our being, is destined for and attuned to it.

There is thus perfect correspondence between our destiny and our capacity. But I beg Your Majesty to regard yourself as destined, at present, to step into your carriage. We must not let the first walk be too long."

The queen and Irma seated themselves in the carriage which awaited them at the Nymph's Grove. They drove on slowly, and the queen said:

"You cannot imagine, dear Irma, how timid and fearful I was when I first came here." She told her how she had looked into the eyes of the mult.i.tude that surrounded her, and had asked herself: "Who of all these does, in truth, belong to you?" and how encouraged she had felt when Irma spoke to her, as it were, with her warm, brown eyes.

"And they were speaking to you," replied Irma. "I should have liked to say to you: 'Sweet being! imagine that we have known each other for years, and feel just as if we had been friends forever.' I fancy that we both felt thus because we were both timid and fearful. It was the first time I had ever been at court, and I felt as if I couldn't help taking the lord steward's staff out of his hand, and supporting myself on it."

"How strange! I had the very same thought," said the queen, "and, now that I think of it, I can still recollect that the lord steward looked at me incessantly."

The affection of the two ladies was cemented by a hundred little memories. The carriage drove on slowly, but their thoughts took in days and months. There was a turn in the road; they had just reached the place where the statue had been shattered.

"It was a terrible night," said the queen, "when that happened, and it seems to me that simple-minded Walpurga is right when she says that it is wrong for us thus to expose the undraped human figure."

"I must be permitted to differ with Your Majesty," replied Irma. "The free--why should we mince words?--the nude, beautiful human form is the only one in accord with free nature. All frippery is subject to changes of taste and fashion. The human form as shaped by the hand of nature, is alone fitted to stand in her temple."

"You are a free soul; far freer than I am," said the queen. They alighted. Irma accompanied the queen to her apartments and then returned to her own. When she found herself alone she threw up her hands, exclaiming:

"What is the greatest punishment? It is not h.e.l.l, where other guilty ones suffer with us! No; to be conscious of guilt and yet condemned to remain beside a pure and happy creature; that is far worse than all the torments of h.e.l.l!"

"G.o.d keep you, Irma! G.o.d keep you!" shrieked the parrot. Irma started with a shudder.

CHAPTER XV.

Spring returned, ushered in by the merry singing of larks and finches, and bringing with it the latest Paris fashions. The queen now appeared in public, and the ladies of the capital were delighted to pattern their costumes after hers.

The queen drove out, with Irma beside her, and Walpurga and the prince opposite.

"You must not worry when you're at home again," said the queen to Walpurga.

Addressing the queen in French, Irma said, with a smile: "Countess Brinkenstein would disapprove of your manifesting any interest in the future fortunes of one whose term of service is at an end."

With a degree of boldness that surprised her two well-wishers, Walpurga said: "There'll be one advantage at any rate, for, at home, they won't treat me as if I were deaf and dumb."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, they wouldn't, while I was about, say things that I can't understand."

Irma endeavored to pacify her, but without avail. Walpurga's longing for home had made her exacting and dissatisfied. She felt ill at ease everywhere, and felt sure that the very people who had done so much to humor and spoil her would soon get along without her.

There was another and a deeper cause for her feeling annoyed when Irma spoke French. A youthful-looking nurse from one of the French cantons of Switzerland had become a member of the prince's household. She could not understand a word of German, and that had been the princ.i.p.al reason for engaging her. The prince was to speak French before he acquired any other language.

Walpurga and the new-comer were, as regarded each other, like two mutes. Nor was she otherwise favorably disposed toward the tall, handsome girl with the French cap. She was, indeed, quite jealous of her. What had the foreigner to do with the child? She was, at times, angry at the child itself.

"You'll soon _parlez vous_ so that I shan't be able to understand a word," she would say, when alone with him, and would feel quite angry; and, the very next minute, she would exclaim: "G.o.d forgive me! How well it is that I'll soon be home again. I can count the days on my fingers."

Mademoiselle Kramer now told Walpurga that a chamber[2] had been prepared for the crown prince.

"He has rooms enough already," said Walpurga.

Mademoiselle Kramer was again obliged to undertake the difficult task of explaining the court custom, in such matters, to Walpurga, who made her go over the various names again and again. She would always begin thus:

"The crown prince will have an ayah--"