Prince Otto Part 26

'Colonel,' said Otto, 'we have a jovial entertainer. I drink to Colonel Gordon.'

Thereupon all three took their wine very pleasantly; and even as they did so, the carriage with a lurch turned into the high-road and began to make better speed.

All was bright within; the wine had coloured Gotthold's cheek; dim forms of forest trees, dwindling and spiring, scarves of the starry sky, now wide and now narrow, raced past the windows, through one that was left open the air of the woods came in with a nocturnal raciness; and the roll of wheels and the tune of the trotting horses sounded merrily on the ear.

Toast followed toast; gla.s.s after gla.s.s was bowed across and emptied by the trio; and presently there began to fall upon them a luxurious spell, under the influence of which little but the sound of quiet and confidential laughter interrupted the long intervals of meditative silence.

'Otto,' said Gotthold, after one of these seasons of quiet, 'I do not ask you to forgive me. Were the parts reversed, I could not forgive you.'

'Well,' said Otto, 'it is a phrase we use. I do forgive you, but your words and your suspicions rankle; and not yours alone. It is idle, Colonel Gordon, in view of the order you are carrying out, to conceal from you the dissensions of my family; they have gone so far that they are now public property. Well, gentlemen, can I forgive my wife? I can, of course, and do; but in what sense? I would certainly not stoop to any revenge; as certainly I could not think of her but as one changed beyond my recognition.'

'Allow me,' returned the Colonel. 'You will permit me to hope that I am addressing Christians? We are all conscious, I trust, that we are miserable sinners.'

'I disown the consciousness,' said Gotthold. 'Warmed with this good fluid, I deny your thesis.'

'How, sir? You never did anything wrong? and I heard you asking pardon but this moment, not of your G.o.d, sir, but of a common fellow-worm!' the Colonel cried.

'I own you have me; you are expert in argument, Herr Oberst,' said the Doctor.

'Begad, sir, I am proud to hear you say so,' said the Colonel. 'I was well grounded indeed at Aberdeen. And as for this matter of forgiveness, it comes, sir, of loose views and (what is if anything more dangerous) a regular life. A sound creed and a bad morality, that's the root of wisdom. You two gentlemen are too good to be forgiving.'

'The paradox is somewhat forced,' said Gotthold.

'Pardon me, Colonel,' said the Prince; 'I readily acquit you of any design of offence, but your words bite like satire. Is this a time, do you think, when I can wish to hear myself called good, now that I am paying the penalty (and am willing like yourself to think it just) of my prolonged misconduct?'

'O, pardon me!' cried the Colonel. 'You have never been expelled from the divinity hall; you have never been broke. I was: broke for a neglect of military duty. To tell you the open truth, your Highness, I was the worse of drink; it's a thing I never do now,' he added, taking out his gla.s.s. 'But a man, you see, who has really tasted the defects of his own character, as I have, and has come to regard himself as a kind of blind teetotum knocking about life, begins to learn a very different view about forgiveness. I will talk of not forgiving others, sir, when I have made out to forgive myself, and not before; and the date is like to be a long one. My father, the Reverend Alexander Gordon, was a good man, and d.a.m.ned hard upon others. I am what they call a bad one, and that is just the difference. The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life.'

'And yet I have heard of you, Colonel, as a duellist,' said Gotthold.

'A different thing, sir,' replied the soldier. 'Professional etiquette.

And I trust without unchristian feeling.'

Presently after the Colonel fell into a deep sleep and his companions looked upon each other, smiling.

'An odd fish,' said Gotthold.

'And a strange guardian,' said the Prince. 'Yet what he said was true.'

'Rightly looked upon,' mused Gotthold, 'it is ourselves that we cannot forgive, when we refuse forgiveness to our friend. Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel.'

'Are there not offences that disgrace the pardoner?' asked Otto. 'Are there not bounds of self-respect?'

'Otto,' said Gotthold, 'does any man respect himself? To this poor waif of a soldier of fortune we may seem respectable gentlemen; but to ourselves, what are we unless a pasteboard portico and a deliquium of deadly weaknesses within?'

'I? yes,' said Otto; 'but you, Gotthold-you, with your interminable industry, your keen mind, your books-serving mankind, scorning pleasures and temptations! You do not know how I envy you.'

'Otto,' said the Doctor, 'in one word, and a bitter one to say: I am a secret tippler. Yes, I drink too much. The habit has robbed these very books, to which you praise my devotion, of the merits that they should have had. It has spoiled my temper. When I spoke to you the other day, how much of my warmth was in the cause of virtue? how much was the fever of last night's wine? Ay, as my poor fellow-sot there said, and as I vaingloriously denied, we are all miserable sinners, put here for a moment, knowing the good, choosing the evil, standing naked and ashamed in the eye of G.o.d.'

'Is it so?' said Otto. 'Why, then, what are we? Are the very best-'

'There is no best in man,' said Gotthold. 'I am not better, it is likely I am not worse, than you or that poor sleeper. I was a sham, and now you know me: that is all.'

'And yet it has not changed my love,' returned Otto softly. 'Our misdeeds do not change us. Gotthold, fill your gla.s.s. Let us drink to what is good in this bad business; let us drink to our old affection; and, when we have done so, forgive your too just grounds of offence, and drink with me to my wife, whom I have so misused, who has so misused me, and whom I have left, I fear, I greatly fear, in danger. What matters it how bad we are, if others can still love us, and we can still love others?'

'Ay!' replied the Doctor. 'It is very well said. It is the true answer to the pessimist, and the standing miracle of mankind. So you still love me? and so you can forgive your wife? Why, then, we may bid conscience "Down, dog," like an ill-trained puppy yapping at shadows.'

The pair fell into silence, the Doctor tapping on his empty gla.s.s.

The carriage swung forth out of the valleys on that open balcony of high-road that runs along the front of Grunewald, looking down on Gerolstein. Far below, a white waterfall was shining to the stars from the falling skirts of forest, and beyond that, the night stood naked above the plain. On the other hand, the lamp-light skimmed the face of the precipices, and the dwarf pine-trees twinkled with all their needles, and were gone again into the wake. The granite roadway thundered under wheels and hoofs; and at times, by reason of its continual winding, Otto could see the escort on the other side of a ravine, riding well together in the night. Presently the Felsenburg came plainly in view, some way above them, on a bold projection of the mountain, and planting its bulk against the starry sky.

'See, Gotthold,' said the Prince, 'our destination.'

Gotthold awoke as from a trance.

'I was thinking,' said he, 'if there is any danger, why did you not resist? I was told you came of your free will; but should you not be there to help her?'

The colour faded from the Prince's cheeks.

CHAPTER III-PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE LAST IN WHICH SHE GALLOPS OFF

When the busy Countess came forth from her interview with Seraphina, it is not too much to say that she was beginning to be terribly afraid. She paused in the corridor and reckoned up her doings with an eye to Gondremark. The fan was in requisition in an instant; but her disquiet was beyond the reach of fanning. 'The girl has lost her head,' she thought; and then dismally, 'I have gone too far.' She instantly decided on secession. Now the _Mons Sacer_ of the Frau von Rosen was a certain rustic villa in the forest, called by herself, in a smart attack of poesy, Tannen Zauber, and by everybody else plain Kleinbrunn.

Thither, upon the thought, she furiously drove, pa.s.sing Gondremark at the entrance to the Palace avenue, but feigning not to observe him; and as Kleinbrunn was seven good miles away, and in the bottom of a narrow dell, she pa.s.sed the night without any rumour of the outbreak reaching her; and the glow of the conflagration was concealed by intervening hills. Frau von Rosen did not sleep well; she was seriously uneasy as to the results of her delightful evening, and saw herself condemned to quite a lengthy sojourn in her deserts and a long defensive correspondence, ere she could venture to return to Gondremark. On the other hand, she examined, by way of pastime, the deeds she had received from Otto; and even here saw cause for disappointment. In these troublous days she had no taste for landed property, and she was convinced, besides, that Otto had paid dearer than the farm was worth. Lastly, the order for the Prince's release fairly burned her meddling fingers.

All things considered, the next day beheld an elegant and beautiful lady, in a riding-habit and a flapping hat, draw bridle at the gate of the Felsenburg, not perhaps with any clear idea of her purpose, but with her usual experimental views on life. Governor Gordon, summoned to the gate, welcomed the omnipotent Countess with his most gallant bearing, though it was wonderful how old he looked in the morning.

'Ah, Governor,' she said, 'we have surprises for you, sir,' and nodded at him meaningly.

'Eh, madam, leave me my prisoners,' he said; 'and if you will but join the band, begad, I'll be happy for life.'

'You would spoil me, would you not?' she asked.

'I would try, I would try,' returned the Governor, and he offered her his arm.

She took it, picked up her skirt, and drew him close to her. 'I have come to see the Prince,' she said. 'Now, infidel! on business. A message from that stupid Gondremark, who keeps me running like a courier.

Do I look like one, Herr Gordon?' And she planted her eyes in him.

'You look like an angel, ma'am,' returned the Governor, with a great air of finished gallantry.

The Countess laughed. 'An angel on horseback!' she said. 'Quick work.'

'You came, you saw, you conquered,' flourished Gordon, in high good humour with his own wit and grace. 'We toasted you, madam, in the carriage, in an excellent good gla.s.s of wine; toasted you fathom deep; the finest woman, with, begad, the finest eyes in Grunewald. I never saw the like of them but once, in my own country, when I was a young fool at College: Thomasina Haig her name was. I give you my word of honour, she was as like you as two peas.'

'And so you were merry in the carriage?' asked the Countess, gracefully dissembling a yawn.

'We were; we had a very pleasant conversation; but we took perhaps a gla.s.s more than that fine fellow of a Prince has been accustomed to,'

said the Governor; 'and I observe this morning that he seems a little off his mettle. We'll get him mellow again ere bedtime. This is his door.'