Royal Highness Part 27

"Nineteen days ago! I must count up. No; let's see, it's eighteen and a half days, unless I'm quite out."

"You did show me your books, then?"

"That is undoubtedly correct, Prince. And I delude myself with the hope that you liked them."

"Oh, Imma, you mustn't talk like that, not now and not to me! My heart is so heavy, and I have such lots still to say to you, which I couldn't get out nineteen days ago, when you showed me your books ... your ma.s.ses of books. How I should love to carry on where we broke off then, and to forget all that lies in between...."

"For heaven's sake, Prince, rather forget the other. Why go back to it?

Why remind yourself and me? I thought you had good reason to observe the strictest silence on such subjects. Fancy letting yourself go like that!

Losing your self-possession to such a degree!"

"If you only knew, Imma, how unutterably pleasant it is for me to lose my self-possession!"

"No, thanks. That's insulting, do you know that? I insist on your showing the same self-possession towards me as towards the rest of the world. I'm not here to provide you with relaxation from your princely existence."

"How entirely you misunderstand me, Imma! But I am well aware that you do so deliberately and only in fun, and that shows me that you don't believe me and don't take what I say seriously...."

"No, Prince, you really ask too much. Haven't you told me about your life? You went to school for show, to the University for show, you served as a soldier for show, and still wear the uniform for show, you hold audiences for show, and play at rifle-shooting and heaven knows what else for show; you came into the world for show, and am I suddenly to believe that there is anything serious about you?"

Tears came to his eyes while she said this: her words hurt him so much.

He answered gently: "You are right, Imma, there is a lot of fiction in my life. But I didn't make it or choose it, you must remember, but have done my duty precisely and sternly as it was prescribed to me for the edification of the people. And it is not enough that it has been a hard one, and full of prohibitions and privations; it must now take revenge on me, by causing you not to believe me."

"You are proud," she said, "of your calling and your life, Prince, I know well, and I cannot wish you to break faith with yourself."

"Oh," he cried, "leave that to me, that about being true to myself, and don't give it a thought! I have had experiences, I have been untrue to myself and have tried to get round the prohibitions, and it ended in my disgrace. But since I have known you, I know, I know for the first time, that I may for the first time, without remorse or harm to what is described as my lofty calling, let myself go like anybody else, although Doctor Ueberbein says, and says in Latin, that that must never be."

"There, you see what your friend said."

"Didn't you yourself call him a poor wretch, who would come to a sad end? He's a fine character; I esteem him greatly, and owe him many hints about myself and things in general. But I've often thought about him recently, and as you expressed so unfavourable a verdict upon him then, I have spent hours considering your verdict, and was forced to own you right. For I'll tell you, Imma, how things stand with Doctor Ueberbein.

His whole life is hostile to happiness, that's what it is."

"That seems to me a very proper hostility," said Imma Spoelmann.

"Proper," he answered, "but wretched, as you yourself said, and what's more, sinful, for it is a sin against something n.o.bler than his severe propriety, as I now see, and it's this sin in which he wished to educate me in his fatherly fashion. But I've now grown out of his education, at this point I have, I'm now independent and know better; and though I may not have convinced Ueberbein, I'll convince you, Imma, sooner or later."

"Yes, Prince, I must grant you that! You have the powers of conviction, your zeal carries one along irresistibly with it! Nineteen days, didn't you say? I maintain that eighteen and a half is right, but it comes to much the same thing. In that time you have condescended to appear at Delphinenort once--four days ago."

He threw a startled look at her.

"But, Imma, you must have patience with me, and some indulgence.

Consider, I'm still awkward ... this is strange ground. I don't know how it was.... I believe I wanted to let us have time. And then there came several calls upon me."

"Of course, you had to fire at the targets for show. I read all about it. As usual, you had a rousing success to show for it. You stood there in your fancy dress, and let a whole meadowful of people love you."

"Halt, Imma, I beg you, don't gallop.... One can't get a word out....

Love, you say. But what sort of love is it? A meadow-love, a casual, superficial love, a love at a distance, which means nothing--a love in full dress with no familiarity about it. No, you've absolutely no reason to be angry because I express myself pleased with it, for I get no good from it; only the people do, who are elevated by it, and that's their desire. But I too have my desire, Imma, and it's to you that I turn."

"How can I help you, Prince?"

"Oh, you know well! It's confidence, Imma; couldn't you have a little confidence in me?"

She looked at him, and the scrutiny of her big eyes had never before been so dark and piercing. But for all the urgency of his dumb pleading, she turned away, and said with a look which betrayed no secrets: "No, Prince Klaus Heinrich, I cannot."

He uttered a cry of grief, and his voice shook, as he asked: "And why can't you?"

She replied: "Because you prevent me."

"How do I prevent you? Please tell me, I beg."

And, with the reserved expression still on her face, her eyes dropped on her white reins, and rocking lightly to her horse's walk, she replied: "Through everything, through your conduct, through the way and manner of your being, through your highly distinguished personality. You know well enough how you prevented the poor Countess from letting herself go, and forced her to be clear-brained and reasonable, although it is expressly on the ground of her excessive experiences that the blessing of craziness and oddness has been vouchsafed to her, and that I told you that I was well aware how you had set out to sober her. Yes, I know it well, for you prevent me too from letting myself go, you sober me too, continually, in every way, through your words, through your look, through your way of sitting and standing, and it is quite impossible to have confidence in you. I've had the opportunity of watching you in your intercourse with other people; but whether it was Doctor Sammet in the Dorothea Hospital or Herr Stavenuter in the 'Pheasantry' Tea-garden, it was always the same, and it always made me shiver. You hold yourself erect, and ask questions, but you don't do so out of sympathy, you don't care what the questions are about--no, you don't care about anything, and you lay nothing to heart. I've often seen it--you speak, you express an opinion, but you might just as well express a quite different one, for in reality you have no opinion and no belief, and the only thing you care about is your princely self-possession. You say sometimes that your calling is not an easy one, but as you have challenged me, I'll ask you to notice that it would be easier to you if you had an opinion and a belief, Prince, that's my opinion and belief. How could anyone have confidence in you! No, it's not confidence that you inspire, but coldness and embarra.s.sment; and if I put myself out to get closer to you, that kind of embarra.s.sment and awkwardness would prevent me from doing so,--there's my answer for you."

He had listened to her with painful tension, had looked more than once at her pale face while she was speaking, and then again, like her, dropped his eyes on the reins.

"I must indeed thank you, Imma," he answered, "for speaking so earnestly, for you know that you don't always do so, but generally speak only derisively, and in your way take things as little seriously as I in mine."

"How else but derisively can I speak to you, Prince?"

"And sometimes you are so hard and cruel, as for instance towards the head sister in the Dorothea Hospital, whom you threw into such confusion."

"Oh, I'm well aware that I too have my faults, and need somebody to help me to give them up."

"I'll be that somebody, Imma; we'll help each other."

"I don't think we can help each other, Prince."

"Yes, we can. Didn't you speak just now quite seriously and unsatirically? But as for me, you are not right when you say that I care about nothing at all and lay nothing to heart, for I care about you, Imma--about you, I have laid you to heart; and as this matter is one of such inexpressible seriousness to me, I cannot fail finally to win your confidence. Were you aware of my joy when I heard you talk of putting yourself out and coming nearer to me? Yes, put yourself out a little, and do not let yourself ever again be confused with that sort of awkwardness, or whatever it is, which you are so liable to feel in my presence. Ah, I know it, I know only too well, how much to blame I am for that! But laugh at yourself and at me when I make you feel like that, and attach yourself to me. Will you promise me to put yourself out a little?"

But Imma Spoelmann promised nothing, but insisted now on her gallop; and many a subsequent conversation remained, like this, without result.

Sometimes, when Klaus Heinrich had come to tea, the Prince, Miss Spoelmann, the Countess, and Percival went into the park. The splendid collie kept decorously at Imma's side, and Countess Lowenjoul walked two or three yards behind the young people; for soon after they had started she had stopped for a second, to twine her bent and bony fingers round a blossom, and she had never made good the distance she had then lost. So Klaus Heinrich and Imma walked in front of her, and talked. But when they had covered a certain distance, they turned round, thus getting the Countess two or three yards in front of them. Then Klaus Heinrich followed up his conversational efforts, and, carefully and without looking up, took Imma Spoelmann's small, ringless hand from her side and clasped it in both his, the while he imploringly asked whether she was taking pains, and had made any progress in her confidence in him.

It displeased him to hear that she had been working, poring over algebra and playing in the lofty spheres since they had last met. He would beg her to lay her books aside now, as they might distract her and divert her from the matter to which all her thinking powers must now be devoted. He talked also about himself, about that sobering effect and awkwardness which, according to her, his existence inspired; he tried to explain it, and in doing so to weaken it. He spoke about the cold, stern, and barren existence which had been his. .h.i.therto, he described to her how everybody had always flocked to gaze at him, while it had been his lofty calling to show himself and to be gazed at, a much more difficult task. He did his best to make her recognize that the remedy for that which caused him to prevent the poor Countess from drivelling and to estrange her to his own sorrow, that this remedy could be found in her, only in her, and was given over absolutely into her hands.

She looked at him, her big eyes sparkled in dark scrutiny, and it was clear that she, she too, was struggling. But then she would shake her head or break off the conversation, introducing with a pout some topic over which she made merry, incapable of bringing herself to take the responsibility of the "Yes" for which he begged her, that undefined and, as matters stood, absolutely non-committal surrender.

She did not prevent him from coming once or twice a week; she did not prevent him from speaking, from a.s.sailing her with prayers and a.s.severations and from taking her hand now and then between his own. But she was only patient, she remained unmoved, her dread of taking the decisive step, that aversion from leaving her cool and derisive kingdom and confessing herself his, seemed unconquerable; and she could not help, in her anguish and exhaustion, breaking out with the words: "Oh, Prince, we ought never to have met--it would have been best if we hadn't. Then you would have pursued your lofty calling as calmly as ever, and I should have preserved my peace of mind, and neither would have hara.s.sed the other!"

The Prince had much difficulty in inducing her to recant, and in extorting from her the confession that she did not entirely regret having made his acquaintance. But all this took time. The summer came to an end, early night-frosts loosened the still-green leaves from the trees, Fatma's, Florian's, and Isabeau's hoofs rustled in the red-and-gold leaf.a.ge when they went for a ride. Autumn came with its mists and sharp smells--and n.o.body could have prophesied an end, or indeed any decisive turn in the course of the strangely fluctuating affair.

The credit of having placed things on the foundation of actuality, of having given events the lead in the direction of a happy issue, must for ever be ascribed to the distinguished gentleman who had up till now wisely kept in the background, but at the right moment intervened carefully but firmly. I refer to Excellency von k.n.o.belsdorff, Minister of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and the Grand Ducal Household.

Dr. Ueberbein had been correct in his a.s.sertion that the President of the Council had kept himself posted in the stages of Klaus Heinrich's love affair. What is more, well served by intelligent and sagacious a.s.sistants, he had kept himself well in touch with the state of public opinion, with the role which Samuel Spoelmann and his daughter played in the imaginative powers of the people, with the royal rank with which the popular idea invested them, with the great and superst.i.tious tension with which the population followed the intercourse between the Schlosses "Hermitage" and Delphinenort, with the popularity of that intercourse: in a word, he was well aware how the Spoelmanns, for everyone who did not deliberately shut his eyes, were the general topic of conversation and rumour, not only in the capital, but in the whole country. A characteristic incident was enough to make Herr k.n.o.belsdorff sure of his ground.

At the beginning of October--the Landtag had been opened a fortnight before, and the disputes with the Budget Commission were in full swing--Imma Spoelmann fell ill, very seriously ill, so it was said at first. It seemed that the imprudent girl, for some whim or mood, while out with her countess, had ventured on a gallop of nearly half an hour's duration on her white Fatma in the teeth of a strong north-east wind, and had come home with an attack of congestion of the lungs, which threatened to end her altogether.

The news soon got about. People said the girl was hovering between life and death, which, as luckily soon emerged, was a great exaggeration. But the consternation, the general sympathy, could not have been greater if a serious accident had happened to a member of the House of Grimmburg, even to the Grand Duke himself. It was the sole topic of conversation.

In the humbler parts of the city, near the Dorothea Hospital for instance, the women stood in the evening outside their front doors, pressed the palms of their hands against their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and coughed, as if to show each other what it meant to be short of breath. The evening papers published searching and expert news of the condition of Miss Spoelmann, which pa.s.sed from hand to hand, were read at family gatherings and cafes, and were discussed in the tram-cars. The _Courier's_ reporter had been seen to drive in a cab to Delphinenort, where, in the hall with the mosaic floor, he had been snubbed by the Spoelmanns' butler, and had talked English to him--though he found that no easy task.