The Lost Manuscript Part 76

"At your Highness's commands."

"Where have you served?"

"With the Blue Hussars."

"Good," nodded the Prince; "we are in the same branch of the service. I hear you are a trustworthy fellow. But what is the matter with you?" He took out his purse. "We will share; take what you want."

Gabriel shook his head.

"Then the women are at fault," cried the Prince; "that is worse. Is she proud?"

Gabriel dissented.

"Is she faithless?"

The poor fellow turned away.

"I am, alas! a bad intercessor with parents," said the Prince, sympathizingly; "the race of fathers have little confidence in me. But if it is only a question of appealing to a girl's conscience, then depend upon me."

"I thank you for your good-will. Highness, but nothing can help me. I will have to fight it out alone."

He turned away again.

"Bah! comrade, have you forgotten the soldiers' saying: 'Like all, love one, grieve for none?' If your heart is heavy, you should not rove about as you do. In lack of another companion put up for the time with me."

"That is too much honor," said Gabriel, taking off his cap.

The Prince had during this conversation gradually led him into a thicket; he seated himself on the root of an old tree, and motioned Gabriel to the next trunk.

"We are in concealment here; you look out that way, I will watch this road, that no one can surprise us. How do your lodgings please you?

Have you found pleasant acquaintances?"

"I think it prudent to trust no one here," answered Gabriel, cautiously.

"But I do not belong here; there is no reason why you should not make me an exception. You may a.s.sume that we belong to the same company, that we are sitting by the same fire, and drinking from the same flask.

You are right: all is not so safe here as it looks. I do not like these nocturnal disturbances in the castle. Have you heard of them?"

Gabriel a.s.sented.

"In such an old castle," continued the Prince, "there are many doors that few know--perhaps also pa.s.sages in the wall. Whether it is spirits or something else, who knows? It glides about and sometimes comes out when one least expects it; and just when one has put on one's night-shirt a secret door is opened, or a plank in the floor rises, and a cursed apparition floats up, removes what is on the table, and before one can bethink oneself, disappears again."

"Who can allow such a thing, your Highness?" replied Gabriel, valiantly.

"Who can be on his guard?" said the Prince, laughing; "it stretches out its hand, and one becomes immovable; it holds a sponge before the nose of the sleeper and he does not awake."

Gabriel listened attentively.

"People say that in the Pavilion all is not secure," continued the Prince. "It would be as well for a trusty man to make an examination in secret; and if an entrance should be found that is not regular it should be fastened with a screw or a bolt. It is indeed uncertain whether or not one may find such a thing, for such devil's work is slyly managed."

He nodded significantly to Gabriel, who stared at him in great astonishment.

"That is only a thought of mine," said the Prince; "but when a soldier is in foreign quarters he looks after every security during the time that his people sleep."

"I understand all," replied Gabriel, in a low voice.

"One must not cause others unnecessary alarm," continued the Prince; "but in secret one may do one's duty like a brave man. I see you are that." The Prince rose from his seat. "If you should at any time need my help, or have anything to tell me which no one else should know, I have a fellow with a great moustache, a good, quiet man; make his acquaintance. For the rest, take care of yourselves here. There is a lackey who idles about near you; if there are any errands to do he can attend to them. It is a good thing for a family to have a trustworthy man at hand in a strange house. Good day, comrade, I hope I have changed the current of your thoughts."

He went away; Gabriel remained in deep thought. The bantering of the Prince had roused the honest man from his sorrow; he busied himself now about the house in the day-time, but in the evening, when his master and mistress were at the theatre, he was to be seen sometimes with the Prince's servant in confidential conversation on a garden bench.

The spirit of sad foreboding spread its grey veil over the walls of the Pavilion, but in the Sovereign's castle meanwhile an invisible hobgoblin of another kind was at work, disturbing great and small. The stable was in consternation. The Prince's favorite saddle-horse was a white Ivenacker. When in the morning the groom went to the horse, he found it with a large black heart painted on its chest. He could not wash out the scandalous mark, probably the evil spirit had in this prank employed a dye intended for the hair of man. Connoisseurs declared that only time could heal the injury. They could not help making it known to the Sovereign who was violently angry, and set the strictest investigations on foot. The night-watchers of the stable had seen no one, no stranger's foot had entered the place; only the groom of Prince Victor, a moustached foreigner, had, at the same time with the other stable servants, cleaned the horse that he had lately received as a present from a relative. The man was examined, he spoke little German, was said by the other servants to be harmless and simple, and nothing could be learnt from him. Finally, the stable-boy who had kept watch was dismissed from service. He disappeared from the capital, and would have been reduced to great misery if Prince Victor had not provided for the poor wretch in his garrison.

There was a great uproar among the ballet-girls. In the new tragic ballet, "The Water Sprite," the first dancer, Guiseppa Scarletti, had a brilliant _role_, in which she was to wear green-silk trunks, with rich silver tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. When she was to put on this part of the costume, which was very important for the _role_, for the first representation, her a.s.sistant was so awkward as to hand it to her wrong side foremost.

The lady expressed her displeasure strongly, the tire-woman turned it round, and it was still wrong. Upon nearer inspection of this piece of art, it was discovered, with dismay, that it presented two convex surfaces like the sh.e.l.l of a bivalve. Mademoiselle Scarletti broke out into a fury, and then into tears and finally hysterics; the manager and the intendant were called; the _artiste_ declared that after this disgrace and disturbance she could not dance. It was not until Prince Victor, whom she highly esteemed, came into the dressing-room to express his deep indignation, and the Sovereign desired her to be told that the insult should be punished in the severest manner, that she recovered sufficient courage to play the difficult _role_. Meanwhile the fairylike rapidity of the theatrical tailor had remedied the injury to her dress. She danced superbly, but with a sad expression that became her well. The intendant was already rejoicing that the misfortune had thus pa.s.sed off, when suddenly, in the midst of the last scene, when the whole depth of the stage was disclosed, the exchanged trunks appeared under Bengal lights in the water nymph's grotto, hanging peacefully upon two projecting points of a silver rock, as if a water sprite had hung them up to dry. Upon this there was a disturbance, and loud laughter among the audience, and the curtain had to fall before the Bengal lights were extinguished. It all looked like revenge, but again the culprit could not be discovered.

The hair of all the servants stood on end. They knew that in the bad times of the princely house a black lady walked through the corridors and rooms, which portended misfortune to it. The belief in this was general; even the High Marshal shared in it; the black lady had appeared to his grandfather, when, on a lonely night, he was awaiting the return of his gracious master. One evening, after the Court had withdrawn, the Marshal was walking, with the lackey carrying a light before him, through the empty rooms to the wing in which Prince Victor lodged, in order to smoke a cigar with him. Suddenly the lackey started back and pointed, trembling, to a corner. There stood the black figure, the head covered with a veil; she raised her hand threateningly, and disappeared through a door in the tapestry. The light fell out of the hand of the lackey, the Marshal groped in the dark to the anteroom of the Prince, and sank down on the sofa there. When the Prince entered from his dressing-room he found him in a state of the highest consternation: even a gla.s.s of punch, which he himself poured out, could not arouse him from his depression. The news that the black lady had appeared flew throughout the castle; an uneasy foreboding of evil occupied the Court. In the evening the lackeys ran hurriedly through the corridor, and were frightened at the echo of their own steps, and the Court ladies would not leave their rooms without escort. The Sovereign also heard of it; his brow contracted gloomily, and at dinner he looked contemptuously at the Marshal.

Even the Court ladies were not spared. Miss von Lossau, who lodged in a wing of the palace over the rooms of the Princess, returned to her apartment one night in the happiest frame of mind. Prince Victor had paid her marked attentions. He had been very amusing, and had shown a degree of feeling which he had never before evinced. Her maid undressed her, and she laid herself to rest with sweet and pleasant thoughts. All was quiet: she fell into her first sleep. The image of the Prince danced before her; then she heard a slight noise; there was a crackling; something moved slowly under her bed. She started; the mysterious noise ceased. She was on the point of deluding herself into the belief that it was a dream, when the noise was repeated under the bed, and something came clattering out. She heard an alarming sound, and saw by the faint light of the night-lamp that a ball was slowly pushing itself behind the chair, and stopping in front of the bed. Half unconscious from terror, she jumped out of bed, touched a strange object with her naked foot, at once felt a sharp pain, and sank back with a scream. She now raised a loud cry for help, till her maid rushed in, and tremblingly lit the candle. The lady was still shrieking in a corner, where the p.r.i.c.kly spectre-ball still lingered in quiet timidity, and gradually showed itself to be a great hedgehog, which was sitting there, still dreamy from its winter sleep, with tears on its nose. Miss Lossau became ill from fright. When the physician hastened to her the next morning, he found the lackeys and maidservants collected in close conclave before her door. On the door was pasted a white placard, on which was to be read, in large characters, "Bettina von Lossau, Princely Court Spy." Again there was the strictest investigation, and again the culprit was not discovered.

But the spirit of torment that had quartered itself under the roof of the castle did not confine its tricks to the Court and its household: it ventured to disturb the Professor also in his learned work.

Ilse was sitting alone, looking absent-mindedly at the pictures of Reynard the Fox, when the lackey threw open the door, announcing:

"His Highness, the Sovereign!"

The Sovereign glanced at the picture in the open book.

"So that is the view you take of our position. The satire of those pages is bitter, but they contain imperishable truth."

Ilse closed the book, coloring.

"The ill-behaved beasts are rude egotists; it is otherwise among men."

"Do you think so?" asked the Sovereign. "Those who have had experience with them will not judge so leniently. The two-legged animals that pursue their aims at the courts of princes are, for the most part, as reckless in their egotism, and as much inclined to profess their attachment. It is not easy to restrain their pretensions."

"Amongst the bad there are surely some better, in whom good preponderates?" rejoined Ilse.

The Sovereign inclined his head civilly.

"He who has to watch all keenly feels the narrow-mindedness of every individual, for he must know where and how far he can place confidence.

Such an observation of various natures, which is always seeking to separate the reality from the glitter, to sound the worth of different characters, and to retain for the observer superior judgment, sharpens the perception of the deficiencies of others. It is possible that we may sometimes judge too severely, while you, with your warm feeling, fall into the amiable weakness of viewing men in too favorable a light."

"My lot, then, is happier," exclaimed Ilse, looking at the Sovereign, with honest commiseration.

"It is sweeter and happier," said the latter with feeling, "to give one's self up without restraint to one's feelings, to a.s.sociate innocently with a few whom one chooses freely, to avoid by slight effort the ill-disposed, and to open one's heart gladly, and without restraint, to those one loves. But he who is condemned to live in the cold atmosphere of business, struggling against countless interests which clash together, can only carry on this existence by surrounding his daily life with regulations which will at least preserve him from overwhelming burdens and annoyances, and compel the foxes and wolves to bend their stubborn heads. Such rules of Court and government are no perfect work; there will often be complaints against them. You, perhaps, may have had occasion to remark that the customs and etiquette of a Court are not without harshness; yet they are necessary, for it makes it easy to us to withdraw and keep within ourselves, and maintain a certain isolation, which helps us to preserve our inward freedom."

Ilse looked conscious.

"But believe me," continued the Sovereign, "we still are human beings; we would gladly give ourselves up to the impulse of the moment, and live without restraint with those whom we esteem. We must often sacrifice ourselves, and we experience moments when such sacrifices are very severe."