The King's Mirror Part 56

It was four o'clock when a sleepy night-porter let me in. My servants had orders never to wait beyond two, and in my rooms all was dark and quiet. But when I lit a candle from the little lamp by the door, I saw somebody lying on the sofa in my dressing-room, a woman's figure stretched in the luxury of quiet sleep. Victoria this must be and none else. I was glad to see her there and to catch her drowsy smile as her eyes opened under the glare of my candle.

"What in the world are you doing here, my dear?" said I, setting down the candle and putting my hands in my pockets.

She sat up, whisking her skirts round with one hand and rubbing her eyes with the other.

"I came to tell you about Krak--Krak's come. But you weren't here. So I lay down, and I suppose I went to sleep."

"I suppose you did. And how's Krak?"

"Just the same as ever!"

"Brought a birch with her, in case I should rebel at the last?"

Victoria laughed.

"Oh, well, you'll see her to-morrow," she remarked. "She's just the same. I'm rather glad, you know, that Krak hasn't been softened by age.

It would have been commonplace."

"Besides, one doesn't want to exaggerate the power of advancing years.

You didn't come for anything except to tell me about Krak?"

Victoria got up, came to me, and kissed me.

"No, nothing else," she said. She stopped a moment, and then remarked abruptly, "You're not a bit like William Adolphus."

"No?" said I, divining in a flash her thought and her purpose.

"Still--have you been with Elsa to-night?"

"Yes; after Cousin Elizabeth and mother left her. You--you'll be kind to her? I told her that she was very silly, and that I wished I was going to marry you."

"Oh, you did? But she wishes to marry me?"

"She means to, of course."

"Exactly. My dear, you've waited a long while to tell me something I knew very well."

"I thought perhaps you'd be glad to see me," she said, with a little laugh. "Where have you been? Not to the Countess'?"

"Indeed, no. To Wetter's."

"Ah! The singer?"

"The singer of my marriage-song, Victoria."

Victoria looked at me in a rather despairing fashion.

"Her singing of it," I added, "will be the most perfect and appropriate thing in the world. You'll be delighted when you hear it. For the rest, my dear sister, Hammerfeldt looks down from heaven and is well pleased."

Victoria sat on the sofa again. I went to the window, unfastened the shutters, and pulled up the blinds. A single star shone yet in the gray sky. I stood looking at it for a few minutes, then lit a cigarette, and turned round. Victoria was on the sofa still; she was crying in a quiet matter-of-fact way, not pa.s.sionately, but with a rather methodical air.

She glanced at me for a moment, but said nothing. Neither did I speak. I leaned against the wall and smoked my cigarette. For five minutes, I should suppose, this state of things went on. Then I flung away the cigarette, Victoria stopped crying, wiped her eyes, and got up.

"I rather wish we'd been born in the gutter," said she. "Good-night, dear."

She kissed me, and I bade her good-night.

"I must get some sleep, or I shall look frightful. I hope William Adolphus won't be snoring very loud, I hear him so plainly through the wall," she said as she started for the door.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

AS BEDERHOF ARRANGED.

Of the next day I have three visions.

I see myself with Krak and Princess Heinrich. Pride illuminated their faces with a cold radiance, and their utterances were conceived in the spirit of a _Nunc Dimittis_. They congratulated the world on its Ruler, the kingdom on its King, themselves on my account, me on theirs. To Krak I was her achievement; to my mother the vindication of the support she had given to Krak, and the refutation of my own grumblings and rebellion. How could I not be reminded of my coronation day? How not smile when the Princess, after observing regretfully that the Baroness would not be able to educate my children, bade me inculcate her principles in the mind of their tutor or governess. She was afraid, she said, that dear Elsa might be a little lacking in firmness, a little p.r.o.ne to that indulgence which is no true kindness in the end. "The very reverse of it, madame," added Krak.

"It's quite time enough for them to begin to do as they like when they grow up," said the Princess Heinrich.

"By then, though," said Krak, "they will have learned, I hope, to do what they ought."

"I hope so with all my heart, Baroness," said I.

"Victoria is absurdly weak with her child," Princess Heinrich complained.

Krak smiled significantly. She had never expected much of Victoria; the repression of exuberant wickedness had been the bounds of her hope.

Krak left us. There must have been some noticeable expression on my face as I watched her go, for my mother said with a smile:

"I know you think she was severe. I used to think so too, now and then.

But see how well you've turned out, Augustin!"

"Madame," said I, "my present excellence and my impending happiness reconcile me to everything."

"You had a very happy childhood," my mother observed. I bowed. "And now you are going to marry the girl I should choose for you above all others." Again I bowed. "And public affairs are quiet and satisfactory."

A third time I bowed. "Kiss me, Augustin," said my mother.

This summary of my highly successful life and reign was delivered in Princess Heinrich's most conclusive manner. I had no thought of disputing it; I was almost surprised that the facts themselves did not suffer an immediate transformation to match the views she expressed.

What matter that things were not so? They were to be deemed so and called so, so held and so proclaimed. My mother's courage touched my heart, and I kissed her with much affection. It is no inconsiderable achievement to be consistently superior to reality. I who fought desperate doubtful battles, crippled by a secret traitorous love of the enemy, could not but pay homage to Princess Heinrich's victorious front.

Next I see myself with Elsa, alone for a little while with Elsa exultant in her pomp, observed of all, the envy of all, the centre of the spectacle, frocked and jewelled beyond heart's desire, narcotized by fuss and finery, laughing and trembling. I had found her alone with difficulty, for she kept some woman by her almost all the day. She did not desire to be alone with me. That was to come to-morrow at Artenberg.

Now was her moment, and she strove to think it eternal. It was not in her to face and conquer the great enemy after Princess Heinrich's heroic fashion; she could only turn and fly, hiding from herself how soon she must be overtaken. She chattered to me with nervous fluency, making haste always to choose the topic, leaving no gap for the entrance of what she feared. I saw in her eyes the apprehension that filled her.

Once it had bred in me the most odious humiliation, an intense longing to go from her, a pa.s.sionate loathing for the necessity of forcing myself on her. I was chastened now; I should not be in so bad a case as Struboff; there would be no question of a fresh slice of bread. But I tried to harden myself against her, declaring that, desiring the prize, she must pay the price, and deserved no pity on the score of a bargain that she herself had ratified. Alas, poor dear, she knew neither how small the prize was nor how great the price, and her eyes prayed me not to turn her fears to certainty. She would know soon enough.

Last comes the vision of the theatre, of the gala performance, where Elsa and I sat side by side, ringed about with great folk, enveloped in splendour, making a spectacle for all the city, a sight that men now remember and recall. There through the piece we sat, and my mind was at work. It seemed to me that all my life was pictured there; I had but to look this way or that, and dead things rose from the grave and were for me alive again. There was Krak's hard face, there my mother's unconquerable smile; a glance at them brought back childhood with its rigours, its pleasures s.n.a.t.c.hed in fearfulness, its strange ignorance and stranger pa.s.sing gleams of insight. Victoria's hand, ringed, and gloved, and braceleted, held her fan; I remembered the little girl's bare, red, rapped knuckles. Away in a box to the right, close by the stage, was the Countess with her husband; my eyes turned often toward her and always found hers on mine. Again as a child I ran to her, asking to be loved; again as a boy I loved her and wrung from her reluctant love; again in the first vigour and unsparing pride of my manhood I sacrificed her heart and my delight. Below her, standing near the orchestra, was Wetter; through my gla.s.s I could see the smile that never left his face as he scanned the bedizened row in which I sat. There with him, looking on, jesting, scoffing at the parade, there was Nature's place for me, not here playing chief part in, the comedy. What talks and what nights had we had together; how together had we fallen from heaven and ruefully prayed for that trick of falling soft! See, he smiles more broadly! What is it? Struboff has stolen in and dropped heavily into a seat. Wetter waved a hand to him and laughed. Laugh, laugh, Wetter! It is your only gospel and therefore must be pardoned its inevitable defects. Laugh even at poor Struboff whose stomach is so gross, whose feelings so fine, who may not give his wife a piece of bread, and would ask no greater joy than to kiss her feet. And laugh at Varvilliers too, who, although he sits where he has a good view of us, never turns his eyes toward the lady by my side, but is most courteously un.o.bservant of her alone among all the throng. Did she look at him? Yes, for he will not look toward her. Why, we are all here, all except Hammerfeldt, who looks down from heaven, and Coralie who is coming presently to sing us the wedding-song. Even Victoria's Baron is here, and Victoria's sobs of terror are in my ears again. Bederhof and his fellows are behind me. The real and the unreal, the dummies and the men, they are all here, each in his place in the tableau. When Coralie comes, we shall be complete.