The Merchant of Berlin Part 43

Gotzkowsky was silent for some minutes, then looked at Bertram sadly and sorrowfully. "You know that this has always been the wish of my heart. But what I have longed for, for so many years, that I must now refuse. I dare not drag you down in my misfortune, and even if I were weak enough to yield to your request, I cannot sacrifice the happiness of my daughter to my welfare. Do you believe, Bertram, that Elise loves you?"

"She is kind to me, and is anxious for my welfare--that is enough,"

said Bertram, sadly. "I have learned for many a long year to renounce all claim to her love."

"But if she loves another? I fear her heart is but too true, and has not forgotten the trifler who destroyed her happiness. Ah! when I think of this man, my heart trembles with anger and grief. In the hour of death I could forgive all my enemies, but the hatred toward this man, who has so wantonly trifled with the faith and love of my child, that hatred I will take with me into the grave--and yet, I fear, Elise has not forgotten him."

"This dead love does not give me any uneasiness," said Bertram. "Four years have pa.s.sed since that unlucky day."

"And for four years have I been faithful in my hatred to him. May not Elise have been as constant in her love?"

Bertram sighed and drooped his head. "It is too true, love does not die so easily." Then after a pause he added in a determined voice: "I repeat my request--give me your daughter!"

"You know that she does not love you, and yet you still desire her hand?"

"I do. I have confidence enough in her and in myself to believe Elise will not refuse it to me, but will freely make this sacrifice, when she learns that you will only allow me, as your son, the privilege of sharing my little fortune with you. For her love to you, she will give me her hand, and invest me with the rights of a son toward you."

"Never!" cried Gotzkowsky, vehemently. "She must never be informed of that of which we have been speaking. She does not forebode the misfortune which threatens her. I have not the courage to tell her, and why should I? When the terrible event happens, she will learn it soon enough, and if it can be averted, why then I can spare her this unhappiness. For my child I wish a clear, unclouded sky; let _me_ bear the clouds and storms. That has always been the object of my life, and I will remain faithful to it to the last."

"You refuse me, then?" asked Bertram, pained.

"No, my son. I accept you, and that which you have given me in this hour, the treasure of your love; that I can never lose. That remains mine, even if they deprive me of all else."

He opened his arms, and Bertram threw himself weeping on his breast.

Long did they thus remain, heart to heart, in silence; but soul spoke to soul without words and without expressions of love.

When Gotzkowsky raised himself from Bertram's embrace, his countenance was calm, and almost cheerful. "I thank you, my son; you have given me new courage and strength. Now I will preserve all my composure. I will humble my pride, and apply to those who in former times professed grat.i.tude toward me. The Council of Berlin have owed me twenty thousand ducats since the time that the Russians were here, and I had to travel twice in the service of the town to Petersburg and Warsaw.

These accounts have never been asked for. I will make it my business to remind the Council of them, as in the days of their need they swore eternal grat.i.tude to me. Come, Bertram, let us see whether these worshipful magistrates are any better than other men, and whether they have any recollection of those sacred promises which they made me in the days when they needed help, and when misfortune threatened them."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RUSSIAN PRINCE.

Before the door of the first hotel in Berlin stood a travelling-carriage covered with dust. The team of six post-horses, and the two servants on the coach-box, showed that it was a personage of quality who now honored the hotel with a visit; and it was therefore very natural that the host should hurry out and open the carriage door with a most respectful bow.

A very tall, thin man descended from the carriage with slow and solemn dignity, and as he entered the house gravely and in silence, his French valet asked the host whether he had rooms elegant enough to suit the Prince Stratimojeff.

The countenance of the host expanded into a glowing smile; he s.n.a.t.c.hed the candlestick hastily from the hands of the head butler, and flew up the steps himself to prepare the room of state for the prince.

The French valet examined the rooms with a critical eye, and declared that, though they were not worthy of his highness, yet he would condescend to occupy them.

The prince still remained silent, his travelling-cap drawn deep down over his face, and his whole figure concealed in the ample robe of sable fur, which reached to his feet. He motioned to the host with his hand to leave the room; then, in a few short words, he ordered his valet to see to supper, and to have it served up in an adjoining room, and as at that moment a carriage drove up to the house, he commissioned him to see whether it was his suite. The valet stated that it was his highness's private secretary, his man of business, and his chaplain.

"I will not see them to-day--they may seek their own pleasure," said the prince, authoritatively. "Tell them that our business begins to-morrow. But for you, Guillaume, I have an important commission. Go to the host and inquire for the rich banker, John Gotzkowsky; and when you have found where he lives, enter into further conversation, and get some information about the circ.u.mstances of this gentleman. I wish to learn, too, about his family; ask about his daughter--if she be still unmarried, and whether she is now in Berlin. In short, find out all you can."

The courteous and obedient valet had left the room some time, but Prince Stratimojeff still stood motionless, his eyes cast on the ground, and muttering some unintelligible words. Suddenly, with an impatient movement, he threw his furred robe from his shoulders, and cast his head-gear far into the room.

"Air! air! I suffocate!" cried he. "I feel as if this town lay on my chest like a hundred-pound weight, and that I have to conceal myself like a criminal from the eyes of men."

He threw his cloak open, and took a long and deep breath.

What was it, then, that so strangely excited Prince Stratimojeff, and shook his very bones as with an ague? It was the memory of former days; it was the painful and d.a.m.ning voice of Conscience which tormented him. What reason had he to inquire after Gotzkowsky the banker, and his daughter? How! Had the heart of Count Feodor von Brenda become so hardened, that when he returned to Berlin he should not long to hear of her whom he had once so shamefully betrayed?

It was indeed himself. Colonel Count Feodor von Brenda had become transformed into the Prince Stratimojeff. Four short years had pa.s.sed, but what desolation had they not caused in his inner life!--four years of dissolute pleasure, of mad, enervating enjoyment; four baccha.n.a.lian years of sensual dissipation and extravagance; four years pa.s.sed at the court of two Russian empresses! In these four years Elizabeth had died; and for a few days the unfortunate Peter III. had worn the imperial crown. But it had proved too heavy for him; and his great consort, Catharine, full of compa.s.sion and Russian humanity for him, had sought to lighten his load! Only, in her too great zeal, she had taken not only his crown, but his head, and changed his prison for a grave.

The Guards shouted for the new empress as they had done for the old.

In the presence of their beautiful young sovereign they remembered with delight the graciousness of her predecessor, who, in the fulness of her kindness and power, had made princes of the subalterns, and great lords of the privates.

Why should not Catharine resemble Elizabeth in that respect, and show favor to the splendid soldiers of the Guards? She was merciful. She was a gracious mistress to all her subjects, but especially so to the handsome men of her empire. And the Count von Brenda was a very handsome man. He had been the favorite of Elizabeth, why should he not also be the favorite of Catharine? The former had treated him with motherly kindness, for she was old; but Catharine was young, and in her proud breast there beat an ardent heart--a heart that was so powerful and large, that it had room for more than one lover.

The young count had been for some short months the declared darling of the empress, and the whole world did homage to him, and looked upon it as a matter of course that Catharine should make him Prince Stratimojeff, and bestow on him not only orders and t.i.tles, but lands and thousands of slaves.

What a mad, intoxicating, joyous life was his! How all the world envied the handsome, rich prince, surrounded by the halo of imperial favor! But nevertheless a cloud lay always on his brow, and he plunged into the sea of pleasure like one ill of fever, who seeks something to cool the heat which is consuming him. He threw himself into the arms of dissipation, as the criminal condemned to execution, who in the intoxication of champagne revels away the last hours of life in order to banish the thought that Death stands behind him, reaching forth his hand to seize him.

Thus did the prince strive in the wild excitement of pleasure to kill thought and deaden his heart. But there would come quiet hours to remind him of the past, and, at times, in the middle of the night, he would start up from his couch, as if he had heard a scream, a single heart-piercing cry, which rang through his very soul.

But this scream existed only in his dreams, those dreams in which Elise's pale, sad face appeared, and made him tremble before her indignant and despairing grief. Near this light figure of his beloved appeared another pallid woman, whose sorrowful looks tortured him, and struck his soul with anguish. He thought he saw his wife, the late Countess Lodoiska von Sandomir, who, with weeping eyes, demanded of him her murdered happiness, her youth, her life.

She was dead; she had died of grief, for she had felt that the man for whom she had sacrificed every thing--her youth, her honor, and her duty--despised her, and could never forgive her for having cheated him into taking her for his wife. She died the victim of his contempt and hatred. Not suddenly, not as with a lightning-stroke, did his contempt kill, but slowly and steadily did it pierce her heart. She bore the torture for one desolate, disconsolate year, and then she died solitary and forsaken. No loving hand dried the death-sweat on her cold forehead; no pitying lips whispered words of love and hope to her; yet on her death-bed, her heart was still warm toward her husband, and even then she blessed him.

A letter written by her trembling hand in her last hours, full of humble, earnest love, of forgiving gentleness, which her husband the prince found on his writing-table, as well as another, directed to Elise Gotzkowsky, and enclosed in the first, bore witness to this fact.

Lodoiska had loved her husband sufficiently to be aware of the cause of his wild and extravagant life, to know that in the bottom of his heart he was suffering from the only true love of his life--his love for Elise; and that all the rest was only a mad and desperate effort to deaden his feelings and smother his desire.

Elise's image followed him everywhere; and his love for her, which might have been the blessing of a good man's life, had been a cruel curse to that of a guilty one. In the midst of the wild routs, the private orgies of the imperial court, her image rose before him from these waves of maddening pleasure as a guardian angel, hushing him often into silence, and stopping the wanton jest on his quivering lips.

At times during these feasts and dances, he was seized with a boundless, unspeakable dread, a torturing anxiety. He felt inexpressibly desolate, and the consciousness of his lost, his wasted existence haunted him, while it seemed as if an inner voice was whispering--"Go, flee to her! with Elise is peace and innocence. If you are to be saved, Elise will save you."

But he had not the strength to obey the warning voice of his heart; he was bound in gilded fetters, and, even if love were absent, pride and vanity prevented him from breaking these bonds. He was the favorite of the young empress, and the great of the empire bowed down before him, and felt themselves happy in his smile, and honored by the pressure of his hand. But every thing is changeable. Even the heart of the Empress Catharine was fickle.

One day the Prince Stratimojeff received a note from his imperial mistress, in which she intrusted him with a diplomatic mission to Germany, and requested him, on account of the urgency of the occasion, to start immediately.

Feodor understood the hidden meaning of this apparently gracious and loving letter; he understood that he had fallen into disgrace--not that he had committed any error or crime. It was only that Count Orloff was handsomer and more amiable than himself, or at least that he seemed so to the empress. Therefore Feodor's presence was inconvenient to her; for at that time in the commencement of her reign, Catharine had still some modesty left, and the place of favorite had not yet become an official position at court, but only a public secret. As yet, she avoided bringing the discharged favorite in contact with the newly appointed one, and therefore Feodor had to be removed before Count Alexis Orloff could enter on his duties.

Prince Feodor Stratimojeff crushed the perfumed imperial note in his hand, and muttered through his set teeth: "She has sacrificed me to an Orloff! She wishes to send me away, that she may more securely play this new farce of love. Very well; I will go, but not to return to be deceived anew by her vows of love and glances of favor. No! let this breach be eternal. Catharine shall feel that, although an empress, she is a woman whom I despise. Therefore let there be no word of farewell, not even the smallest request. She bids me go, and I go. And would it not seem as if Fate pointed out to me the way I am to go? Is it not a strange chance that Catharine should choose me for this mission to Germany?"

It was indeed a singular accident that the empress unintentionally should have sent back her discharged favorite to the only woman whom he had ever loved. He was sent as amba.s.sador extraordinary to Berlin, to press more urgently her claims on a Prussian banker, to bring up before the Prussian department for foreign affairs the merchant John Gotzkowsky with regard to her demand for two millions of dollars; and, in case he refused to pay it, to try in a diplomatic way whether Prussia could not he induced to support this demand of the empress, and procure immediate payment.

This was the mission which Catharine had confided to Prince Stratimojeff, who, when he determined to undertake it, said to himself: "I will take vengeance on this proud woman who thinks to cast me off like a toy of which she has tired; I will show her that my heart is unmoved by her infidelity; I will present to her my young wife, whose beauty, youth, and innocence will cause her to blush for shame."

Never had he been so fascinating and lively, so brilliant and sparkling with wit, as on the evening preceding his departure. His jests were the boldest and freest; they made even the empress blush, and sent her blood hot and bounding through her veins. The court, that would have been delighted to have seen the long-envied and hated favorite now abashed and humbled before his newly-declared successor, remarked with astonishment and bitter mortification that the humiliation was changed into a triumph; for the empress, charmed by his amiability and wit, seemed to turn her heart again toward him, and to entreat him with the tenderest looks to forgive her faithlessness.

She had already forgotten the unfortunate emba.s.sy which was to remove Feodor from her court, when he himself came to remind her of it.

While all countenances were still beaming with delight over a precious _bon mot_ which Feodor had just perpetrated, and at which the empress herself had laughed aloud, he stepped up to her and requested her blessing on his voyage to Germany, which he was going to commence that night.