The Lost Manuscript Part 100

He dragged himself onward.

"The third station on the road to the end," he meditated, "is idle and empty play, and puerile tricks. So said the learned pedant. It coincides; I am transformed into a childish caricature of my nature.

Miserable was the texture of the net which I drew around her; a firm will could have broken it in a moment. He was right; the game was childish: by a stroke of a quill I wished to hold him fast, and, before the art of the Magister had accomplished its purpose, I disturbed the success of the scheme by the trembling haste of my pa.s.sion. When the news comes to him that his wife has fled, he also will pack up his books, and mock me at a safe distance. Bad player, who approached the gaming-table with a good method, to put piece after piece on the green cloth, and who in his madness flung down his purse and lost all in one throw. Curses upon him and me! He must not escape from me; he must not see her. Yet, what use is there in keeping him, unless I encase his limbs in iron, or conceal his body below, where we shall all be concealed when others obtain the power of doing what they will with us?

You lie. Professor, when you compare me to your old Emperors. I am alarmed at the thought of things which they did laughing, and my brain refuses to think of what was once commanded by a short gesture of the hand. A ball and dice for two," he continued; "that is a merry game, invented by men of my sort; as it turns up, one falls and the other escapes. We will throw the dice. Professor, to see which of us shall do his opponent the last service; and I will greet you, dreamer, if I am the fortunate one that is carried to rest. Does thy wit, philosopher, extend far enough to see thy fate, as happened to that old astrologer, of whom thy Tiberius inquired about his own future? Let us try how wise you are."

He again stood still, and looked restlessly on the dark pictures.

"You shake your heads, you silent figures; many of you have done injury to others; but you are all honorably interred, with mourning marshals and funeral horses. Songs have been sung in your honor, and learned men have framed Latin elegies, and sighed that the golden shower has ceased that fell upon them from your hands. There stands one of you," he exclaimed, gazing with fixed eyes on a corner; "there hovers the spirit of woe, the dark shadow that pa.s.ses through this house when misfortune approaches it--guilt and atonement It pa.s.ses along bodiless to frighten fools, an apparition of my diseased mind. I see it raise its hand--it scares me. I am terrified at the images of my own brain. Away!" he called out, aloud, "away! I am the lord of this house."

He ran through the room and stumbled; the black shadow hastened behind him. The Sovereign fell upon the floor. He cried aloud for help through the desolate s.p.a.ce. A valet hastened from the anteroom. He found his master lying on the ground.

"I heard a shrill cry," said the Sovereign, raising himself up; "who was it that screamed above my head?"

The servant replied, trembling:

"I know not who it was. I heard the cry, and hastened hither."

"It was myself, I suppose," the master returned, in a faltering tone; "my weakness overcame me."

In the early morning the Professor called to the Castellan, and rushed up the staircase of the tower. He went about the room, pushing boards and planks in all directions; he found many forgotten chests, but not that which he sought. He made the Castellan open each of the adjoining rooms; went through garrets and cellars; he examined the forester, who lived in a house near by, but the latter could give him no information.

When the Scholar again entered his room, he laid his head on his hands; prolonged disappointment and the consciousness of his impotence overmastered him. But he chid and restrained himself.

"I have lost too much of the cool circ.u.mspection which Fritz said was the highest virtue of a collector. I must accustom myself to the thought of self-resignation, and calmly examine the hopes which still remain. I must not be ungrateful also for the little I have gained."

He could not sit quietly by the discovered leaves, but paced thoughtfully up and down. He heard voices in the court-yard; hasty running in the pa.s.sages; and at last a lackey announced the arrival of the Sovereign, and that he wished to see the Professor at breakfast.

The table was spread among blooming bushes on the side of the tower that faced the rising sun. When the Professor entered under the roof which protected the place from rain and the rays of the sun, he found there, besides the household and Marshal, the forest officials and the Lord High Steward, who thought, with more anxiety than the Professor, of the sudden arrival of the Sovereign. The old lord approached the Scholar, and spoke on indifferent subjects.

"How long do you think of remaining here?" he asked, politely.

"I shall request permission to return to the city in an hour; I have accomplished what I had to do."

It was a long time before the princely party appeared. When the Sovereign approached them, all present were struck by his ill appearance: his movements were hurried, his features disturbed, and his looks pa.s.sed unsteadily over the company. He turned first to the forester, who was in attendance, and asked him, harshly:

"How can you tolerate the disagreeable screaming of the daws on the tower? It was your business to remove them."

"Her Highness the Princess last summer requested that the birds be left."

"The noise is insupportable to me," said the Sovereign; "bring out the weapons, and prepare yourself to shoot among them."

As the practice of shooting was one of the regular country pleasures of the Court, and the Sovereign had, even in the neighborhood of the castle, frequently used his gun on birds of prey or other unusual objects, the Court thought less seriously of this commission than did the Scholar.

The Sovereign turned to the Lord High Steward.

"I am surprised to find your Excellency here," he said; "I did not know that you too had taken leave of absence for this quiet life."

"My gracious master would have been surprised if I had not done my duty. It was my intention to have reported to your Highness to-day at the palace concerning the health of the Princess."

"So it was for that," said the Sovereign. "I had forgotten that my Lord High Steward is never weary of his office of guardian."

"An office that one has exercised almost half a century in the service of the ill.u.s.trious family becomes in fact a habit," replied the High Steward. "Your Highness has heretofore judged with kind consideration the zeal of a servant who is anxious to make himself useful."

The Sovereign turned to the Marshal, and asked, in a suppressed voice:

"Will he remain?"

The Marshal replied, distressed:

"I could obtain no promise, nor even a wish from him."

"I knew it already," replied the Sovereign, hoa.r.s.ely. He turned to the Professor, and violently forced himself to a.s.sume a friendly demeanor, as he said: "I have heard from my daughter of your campaign against broken chairs. I wish to have some talk with you alone about it."

They sat down to table. The Sovereign gazed vacantly before him, and drank several gla.s.ses of wine; the Princess also sat silent, the conversation flagged, the High Steward alone became talkative. He asked about a bust of Winkelmann, and spoke of the lively interest which the nation took in the fate of their intellectual leaders.

"It must be an agreeable feeling," he said, politely, to the Professor, "to be in a certain measure under the protection of the whole civilized world. In the majority of cases the private life of our great men of learning pa.s.ses away uneventfully, but our people delight in occupying themselves with the course of life of those who have departed. If happy accident brings a person into contact with gentlemen of your standing, he must take care that he does not suffer for all eternity under the hands of later biographers. I confess," he continued, laughing, "that a fear on this point has robbed me of many interesting acquaintances."

The Professor answered, quietly:

"The people are conscious that they have by the labor of scholars first been raised from misery; but with greater experience in political life, their interest in the promoters of our present culture will a.s.sume more moderate proportions."

"I have told the Sovereign that you have found something here,"

remarked the Princess, across the table.

"There has been a remarkable discovery made in an ancient sepulchre,"

interrupted the High Steward; and he gave a diffuse account of a funeral urn.

But now the Sovereign himself turned to the Scholar.

"Surely you may hope to find the rest?"

"Unfortunately, I do not know where to search further," replied the Professor.

"What you have found, then," continued the Sovereign, with self-control, "is unimportant."

It did not please the Professor that the conversation should again turn upon the ma.n.u.script; he felt annoyed at having to talk about his Romans.

"It is a few chapters from the sixth book of the Annals," he replied, with reserve.

"When your Highness was at Pompeii," interposed the High Steward, "the inscriptions on the walls attracted your attention. In those days a beautiful treatise upon the subject came into my hands; it is fascinating to observe the lively people of lower Italy in the unrestrained expression of their love and their hatred. One feels oneself transplanted as vividly into the old time by the nave utterances of the common people, as if one took a newspaper in one's hand that had been written centuries ago. If any one had told the citizens of Pompeii that at the end of eighteen centuries it would be known who they, in accidental ill-humor, had treated with hostility, they would hardly have believed it. We indeed are more cautious."

"That was the hatred of insignificant people," replied the Sovereign, absently. "Tacitus knew nothing of that, he only concerned himself about the scandal of the court. Probably he also held office."

The Princess looked uneasily at the Sovereign.