Prince Otto
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Robert Louis Stevenson >> Prince Otto
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The power of this man over the Princess is, therefore, without
bounds. She has sacrificed to the adoration with which he has
inspired her not only her marriage vow and every shred of public
decency, but that vice of jealousy which is so much dearer to the
female sex than either intrinsic honour or outward consideration.
Nay, more: a young, although not a very attractive woman, and a
princess both by birth and fact, she submits to the triumphant
rivalry of one who might be her mother as to years, and who is so
manifestly her inferior in station. This is one of the mysteries of
the human heart. But the rage of illicit love, when it is once
indulged, appears to grow by feeding; and to a person of the
character and temperament of this unfortunate young lady, almost any
depth of degradation is within the reach of possibility.
CHAPTER III - THE PRINCE AND THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER
So far Otto read, with waxing indignation; and here his fury
overflowed. He tossed the roll upon the table and stood up. 'This
man,' he said, 'is a devil. A filthy imagination, an ear greedy of
evil, a ponderous malignity of thought and language: I grow like him
by the reading! Chancellor, where is this fellow lodged?'
'He was committed to the Flag Tower,' replied Greisengesang, 'in the
Gamiani apartment.'
'Lead me to him,' said the Prince; and then, a thought striking him,
'Was it for that,' he asked, 'that I found so many sentries in the
garden?'
'Your Highness, I am unaware,' answered Greisengesang, true to his
policy. 'The disposition of the guards is a matter distinct from my
functions.'
Otto turned upon the old man fiercely, but ere he had time to speak,
Gotthold touched him on the arm. He swallowed his wrath with a
great effort. 'It is well,' he said, taking the roll. 'Follow me
to the Flag Tower.'
The Chancellor gathered himself together, and the two set forward.
It was a long and complicated voyage; for the library was in the
wing of the new buildings, and the tower which carried the flag was
in the old schloss upon the garden. By a great variety of stairs
and corridors, they came out at last upon a patch of gravelled
court; the garden peeped through a high grating with a flash of
green; tall, old gabled buildings mounted on every side; the Flag
Tower climbed, stage after stage, into the blue; and high over all,
among the building daws, the yellow flag wavered in the wind. A
sentinel at the foot of the tower stairs presented arms; another
paced the first landing; and a third was stationed before the door
of the extemporised prison.
'We guard this mud-bag like a jewel,' Otto sneered.
The Gamiani apartment was so called from an Italian doctor who had
imposed on the credulity of a former prince. The rooms were large,
airy, pleasant, and looked upon the garden; but the walls were of
great thickness (for the tower was old), and the windows were
heavily barred. The Prince, followed by the Chancellor, still
trotting to keep up with him, brushed swiftly through the little
library and the long saloon, and burst like a thunderbolt into the
bedroom at the farther end. Sir John was finishing his toilet; a
man of fifty, hard, uncompromising, able, with the eye and teeth of
physical courage. He was unmoved by the irruption, and bowed with a
sort of sneering ease.
'To what am I to attribute the honour of this visit?' he asked.
'You have eaten my bread,' replied Otto, 'you have taken my hand,
you have been received under my roof. When did I fail you in
courtesy? What have you asked that was not granted as to an
honoured guest? And here, sir,' tapping fiercely on the manuscript,
'here is your return.'
'Your Highness has read my papers?' said the Baronet. 'I am
honoured indeed. But the sketch is most imperfect. I shall now
have much to add. I can say that the Prince, whom I had accused of
idleness, is zealous in the department of police, taking upon
himself those duties that are most distasteful. I shall be able to
relate the burlesque incident of my arrest, and the singular
interview with which you honour me at present. For the rest, I have
already communicated with my Ambassador at Vienna; and unless you
propose to murder me, I shall be at liberty, whether you please or
not, within the week. For I hardly fancy the future empire of
Grunewald is yet ripe to go to war with England. I conceive I am a
little more than quits. I owe you no explanation; yours has been
the wrong. You, if you have studied my writing with intelligence,
owe me a large debt of gratitude. And to conclude, as I have not
yet finished my toilet, I imagine the courtesy of a turnkey to a
prisoner would induce you to withdraw.'
There was some paper on the table, and Otto, sitting down, wrote a
passport in the name of Sir John Crabtree.
'Affix the seal, Herr Cancellarius,' he said, in his most princely
manner, as he rose.
Greisengesang produced a red portfolio, and affixed the seal in the
unpoetic guise of an adhesive stamp; nor did his perturbed and
clumsy movements at all lessen the comedy of the performance. Sir
John looked on with a malign enjoyment; and Otto chafed, regretting,
when too late, the unnecessary royalty of his command and gesture.
But at length the Chancellor had finished his piece of
prestidigitation, and, without waiting for an order, had
countersigned the passport. Thus regularised, he returned it to
Otto with a bow.
'You will now,' said the Prince, 'order one of my own carriages to
be prepared; see it, with your own eyes, charged with Sir John's
effects, and have it waiting within the hour behind the Pheasant
House. Sir John departs this morning for Vienna.'
The Chancellor took his elaborate departure.
'Here, sir, is your passport,' said Otto, turning to the Baronet.
'I regret it from my heart that you have met inhospitable usage.'
'Well, there will be no English war,' returned Sir John.
'Nay, sir,' said Otto, 'you surely owe me your civility. Matters
are now changed, and we stand again upon the footing of two
gentlemen. It was not I who ordered your arrest; I returned late
last night from hunting; and as you cannot blame me for your
imprisonment, you may even thank me for your freedom.'
'And yet you read my papers,' said the traveller shrewdly.
'There, sir, I was wrong,' returned Otto; 'and for that I ask your
pardon. You can scarce refuse it, for your own dignity, to one who
is a plexus of weaknesses. Nor was the fault entirely mine. Had
the papers been innocent, it would have been at most an
indiscretion. Your own guilt is the sting of my offence.'
Sir John regarded Otto with an approving twinkle; then he bowed, but
still in silence.
'Well, sir, as you are now at your entire disposal, I have a favour
to beg of your indulgence,' continued the Prince. 'I have to
request that you will walk with me alone into the garden so soon as
your convenience permits.'
'From the moment that I am a free man,' Sir John replied, this time
with perfect courtesy, 'I am wholly at your Highness's command; and
if you will excuse a rather summary toilet, I will even follow you,
as I am.'
'I thank you, sir,' said Otto.
So without more delay, the Prince leading, the pair proceeded down
through the echoing stairway of the tower, and out through the
grating, into the ample air and sunshine of the morning, and among
the terraces and flower-beds of the garden. They crossed the fish-
pond, where the carp were leaping as thick as bees; they mounted,
one after another, the various flights of stairs, snowed upon, as
they went, with April blossoms, and marching in time to the great
orchestra of birds. Nor did Otto pause till they had reached the
highest terrace of the garden. Here was a gate into the park, and
hard by, under a tuft of laurel, a marble garden seat. Hence they
looked down on the green tops of many elm-trees, where the rooks
were busy; and, beyond that, upon the palace roof, and the yellow
banner flying in the blue. I pray you to be seated, sir,' said
Otto.
Sir John complied without a word; and for some seconds Otto walked
to and fro before him, plunged in angry thought. The birds were all
singing for a wager.
'Sir,' said the Prince at length, turning towards the Englishman,
'you are to me, except by the conventions of society, a perfect
stranger. Of your character and wishes I am ignorant. I have never
wittingly disobliged you. There is a difference in station, which I
desire to waive. I would, if you still think me entitled to so much
consideration - I would be regarded simply as a gentleman. Now,
sir, I did wrong to glance at these papers, which I here return to
you; but if curiosity be undignified, as I am free to own, falsehood
is both cowardly and cruel. I opened your roll; and what did I find
- what did I find about my wife; Lies!' he broke out. 'They are
lies! There are not, so help me God! four words of truth in your
intolerable libel! You are a man; you are old, and might be the
girl's father; you are a gentleman; you are a scholar, and have
learned refinement; and you rake together all this vulgar scandal,
and propose to print it in a public book! Such is your chivalry!
But, thank God, sir, she has still a husband. You say, sir, in that
paper in your hand, that I am a bad fencer; I have to request from
you a lesson in the art. The park is close behind; yonder is the
Pheasant House, where you will find your carriage; should I fall,
you know, sir - you have written it in your paper - how little my
movements are regarded; I am in the custom of disappearing; it will
be one more disappearance; and long before it has awakened a remark,
you may be safe across the border.'
'You will observe,' said Sir John, 'that what you ask is
impossible.'
'And if I struck you?' cried the Prince, with a sudden menacing
flash.
'It would be a cowardly blow,' returned the Baronet, unmoved, 'for
it would make no change. I cannot draw upon a reigning sovereign.'
'And it is this man, to whom you dare not offer satisfaction, that
you choose to insult!' cried Otto.
'Pardon me,' said the traveller, 'you are unjust. It is because you
are a reigning sovereign that I cannot fight with you; and it is for
the same reason that I have a right to criticise your action and
your wife. You are in everything a public creature; you belong to
the public, body and bone. You have with you the law, the muskets
of the army, and the eyes of spies. We, on our side, have but one
weapon - truth.'
'Truth!' echoed the Prince, with a gesture.
There was another silence.
'Your Highness,' said Sir John at last, 'you must not expect grapes
from a thistle. I am old and a cynic. Nobody cares a rush for me;
and on the whole, after the present interview, I scarce know anybody
that I like better than yourself. You see, I have changed my mind,
and have the uncommon virtue to avow the change. I tear up this
stuff before you, here in your own garden; I ask your pardon, I ask
the pardon of the Princess; and I give you my word of honour as a
gentleman and an old man, that when my book of travels shall appear
it shall not contain so much as the name of Grunewald. And yet it
was a racy chapter! But had your Highness only read about the other
courts! I am a carrion crow; but it is not my fault, after all,
that the world is such a nauseous kennel.'
'Sir,' said Otto, 'is the eye not jaundiced?'
'Nay,' cried the traveller, 'very likely. I am one who goes
sniffing; I am no poet. I believe in a better future for the world;
or, at all accounts, I do most potently disbelieve in the present.
Rotten eggs is the burthen of my song. But indeed, your Highness,
when I meet with any merit, I do not think that I am slow to
recognise it. This is a day that I shall still recall with
gratitude, for I have found a sovereign with some manly virtues; and
for once - old courtier and old radical as I am - it is from the
heart and quite sincerely that I can request the honour of kissing
your Highness's hand?'
'Nay, sir,' said Otto, 'to my heart!'
And the Englishman, taken at unawares, was clasped for a moment in
the Prince's arms.
'And now, sir,' added Otto, 'there is the Pheasant House; close
behind it you will find my carriage, which I pray you to accept.
God speed you to Vienna!'
'In the impetuosity of youth,' replied Sir John, 'your Highness has
overlooked one circumstance. I am still fasting.'
'Well, sir,' said Otto, smiling, 'you are your own master; you may
go or stay. But I warn you, your friend may prove less powerful
than your enemies. The Prince, indeed, is thoroughly on your side;
he has all the will to help; but to whom do I speak? - you know
better than I do, he is not alone in Grunewald.'
'There is a deal in position,' returned the traveller, gravely
nodding. 'Gondremark loves to temporise; his policy is below
ground, and he fears all open courses; and now that I have seen you
act with so much spirit, I will cheerfully risk myself on your
protection. Who knows? You may be yet the better man.'
'Do you indeed believe so?' cried the Prince. 'You put life into my
heart!'
'I will give up sketching portraits,' said the Baronet. 'I am a
blind owl; I had misread you strangely. And yet remember this; a
sprint is one thing, and to run all day another. For I still
mistrust your constitution; the short nose, the hair and eyes of
several complexions; no, they are diagnostic; and I must end, I see,
as I began.'
'I am still a singing chambermaid?' said Otto.
'Nay, your Highness, I pray you to forget what I had written,' said
Sir John; 'I am not like Pilate; and the chapter is no more. Bury
it, if you love me.'
CHAPTER IV - WHILE THE PRINCE IS IN THE ANTE-ROOM . . .
GREATLY comforted by the exploits of the morning, the Prince turned
towards the Princess's ante-room, bent on a more difficult
enterprise. The curtains rose before him, the usher called his
name, and he entered the room with an exaggeration of his usual
mincing and airy dignity. There were about a score of persons
waiting, principally ladies; it was one of the few societies in
Grunewald where Otto knew himself to be popular; and while a maid of
honour made her exit by a side door to announce his arrival to the
Princess, he moved round the apartment, collecting homage and
bestowing compliments with friendly grace. Had this been the sum of
his duties, he had been an admirable monarch. Lady after lady was
impartially honoured by his attention.
'Madam,' he said to one, 'how does this happen? I find you daily
more adorable.'
'And your Highness daily browner,' replied the lady. 'We began
equal; O, there I will be bold: we have both beautiful complexions.
But while I study mine, your Highness tans himself.'
'A perfect negro, madam; and what so fitly - being beauty's slave?'
said Otto. - 'Madame Grafinski, when is our next play? I have just
heard that I am a bad actor.'
'O CIEL!' cried Madame Grafinski. 'Who could venture? What a
bear!'
'An excellent man, I can assure you,' returned Otto.
'O, never! O, is it possible!' fluted the lady. 'Your Highness
plays like an angel.'
'You must be right, madam; who could speak falsely and yet look so
charming?' said the Prince. 'But this gentleman, it seems, would
have preferred me playing like an actor.'
A sort of hum, a falsetto, feminine cooing, greeted the tiny sally;
and Otto expanded like a peacock. This warm atmosphere of women and
flattery and idle chatter pleased him to the marrow.
'Madame von Eisenthal, your coiffure is delicious,' he remarked.
'Every one was saying so,' said one.
'If I have pleased Prince Charming?' And Madame von Eisenthal swept
him a deep curtsy with a killing glance of adoration.
'It is new?' he asked. 'Vienna fashion.'
'Mint new,' replied the lady, 'for your Highness's return. I felt
young this morning; it was a premonition. But why, Prince, do you
ever leave us?'
'For the pleasure of the return,' said Otto. 'I am like a dog; I
must bury my bone, and then come back to great upon it.'
'O, a bone! Fie, what a comparison! You have brought back the
manners of the wood,' returned the lady.
'Madam, it is what the dog has dearest,' said the Prince. 'But I
observe Madame von Rosen.'
And Otto, leaving the group to which he had been piping, stepped
towards the embrasure of a window where a lady stood.
The Countess von Rosen had hitherto been silent, and a thought
depressed, but on the approach of Otto she began to brighten. She
was tall, slim as a nymph, and of a very airy carriage; and her
face, which was already beautiful in repose, lightened and changed,
flashed into smiles, and glowed with lovely colour at the touch of
animation. She was a good vocalist; and, even in speech, her voice
commanded a great range of changes, the low notes rich with tenor
quality, the upper ringing, on the brink of laughter, into music. A
gem of many facets and variable hues of fire; a woman who withheld
the better portion of her beauty, and then, in a caressing second,
flashed it like a weapon full on the beholder; now merely a tall
figure and a sallow handsome face, with the evidences of a reckless
temper; anon opening like a flower to life and colour, mirth and
tenderness:- Madame von Rosen had always a dagger in reserve for the
despatch of ill-assured admirers. She met Otto with the dart of
tender gaiety.
'You have come to me at last, Prince Cruel,' she said. 'Butterfly!
Well, and am I not to kiss your hand?' she added.
'Madam, it is I who must kiss yours.' And Otto bowed and kissed it.
'You deny me every indulgence,' she said, smiling.
'And now what news in Court?' inquired the Prince. 'I come to you
for my gazette.'
'Ditch-water!' she replied. 'The world is all asleep, grown grey in
slumber; I do not remember any waking movement since quite an
eternity; and the last thing in the nature of a sensation was the
last time my governess was allowed to box my ears. But yet I do
myself and your unfortunate enchanted palace some injustice. Here
is the last - O positively!' And she told him the story from behind
her fan, with many glances, many cunning strokes of the narrator's
art. The others had drawn away, for it was understood that Madame
von Rosen was in favour with the Prince. None the less, however,
did the Countess lower her voice at times to within a semitone of
whispering; and the pair leaned together over the narrative.
'Do you know,' said Otto, laughing, 'you are the only entertaining
woman on this earth!'
'O, you have found out so much,' she cried.
'Yes, madam, I grow wiser with advancing years,' he returned.
'Years,' she repeated. 'Do you name the traitors? I do not believe
in years; the calendar is a delusion.'
'You must be right, madam,' replied the Prince. 'For six years that
we have been good friends, I have observed you to grow younger.'
'Flatterer!' cried she, and then with a change, 'But why should I
say so,' she added, 'when I protest I think the same? A week ago I
had a council with my father director, the glass; and the glass
replied, "Not yet!" I confess my face in this way once a month. O!
a very solemn moment. Do you know what I shall do when the mirror
answers, "Now"?'
'I cannot guess,' said he.
'No more can I,' returned the Countess. 'There is such a choice!
Suicide, gambling, a nunnery, a volume of memoirs, or politics - the
last, I am afraid.'
'It is a dull trade,' said Otto.
'Nay,' she replied, 'it is a trade I rather like. It is, after all,
first cousin to gossip, which no one can deny to be amusing. For
instance, if I were to tell you that the Princess and the Baron rode
out together daily to inspect the cannon, it is either a piece of
politics or scandal, as I turn my phrase. I am the alchemist that
makes the transmutation. They have been everywhere together since
you left,' she continued, brightening as she saw Otto darken; 'that
is a poor snippet of malicious gossip - and they were everywhere
cheered - and with that addition all becomes political
intelligence.'
'Let us change the subject,' said Otto.
'I was about to propose it,' she replied, 'or rather to pursue the
politics. Do you know? this war is popular - popular to the length
of cheering Princess Seraphina.'
'All things, madam, are possible,' said the Prince; and this among
others, that we may be going into war, but I give you my word of
honour I do not know with whom.'
'And you put up with it?' she cried. 'I have no pretensions to
morality; and I confess I have always abominated the lamb, and
nourished a romantic feeling for the wolf. O, be done with
lambiness! Let us see there is a prince, for I am weary of the
distaff.'
'Madam,' said Otto, 'I thought you were of that faction.'
'I should be of yours, MON PRINCE, if you had one,' she retorted.
'Is it true that you have no ambition? There was a man once in
England whom they call the kingmaker. Do you know,' she added, 'I
fancy I could make a prince?'
'Some day, madam,' said Otto, 'I may ask you to help make a farmer.'
'Is that a riddle?' asked the Countess.
'It is,' replied the Prince, 'and a very good one too.'
'Tit for tat. I will ask you another,' she returned. 'Where is
Gondremark?'
'The Prime Minister? In the prime-ministry, no doubt,' said Otto.
'Precisely,' said the Countess; and she pointed with her fan to the
door of the Princess's apartments. 'You and I, MON PRINCE, are in
the ante-room. You think me unkind,' she added. 'Try me and you
will see. Set me a task, put me a question; there is no enormity I
am not capable of doing to oblige you, and no secret that I am not
ready to betray.'
'Nay, madam, but I respect my friend too much,' he answered, kissing
her hand. 'I would rather remain ignorant of all. We fraternise
like foemen soldiers at the outposts, but let each be true to his
own army.'
'Ah,' she cried, 'if all men were generous like you, it would be
worth while to be a woman!' Yet, judging by her looks, his
generosity, if anything, had disappointed her; she seemed to seek a
remedy, and, having found it, brightened once more. 'And now,' she
said, 'may I dismiss my sovereign? This is rebellion and a CAS
PENDABLE; but what am I to do? My bear is jealous!'
'Madam, enough!' cried Otto. 'Ahasuerus reaches you the sceptre;
more, he will obey you in all points. I should have been a dog to
come to whistling.'
And so the Prince departed, and fluttered round Grafinski and von
Eisenthal. But the Countess knew the use of her offensive weapons,
and had left a pleasant arrow in the Prince's heart. That
Gondremark was jealous - here was an agreeable revenge! And Madame
von Rosen, as the occasion of the jealousy, appeared to him in a new
light.
CHAPTER V - . . . GONDREMARK IS IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER
THE Countess von Rosen spoke the truth. The great Prime Minister of
Grunewald was already closeted with Seraphina. The toilet was over;
and the Princess, tastefully arrayed, sat face to face with a tall
mirror. Sir John's description was unkindly true, true in terms and
yet a libel, a misogynistic masterpiece. Her forehead was perhaps
too high, but it became her; her figure somewhat stooped, but every
detail was formed and finished like a gem; her hand, her foot, her
ear, the set of her comely head, were all dainty and accordant; if
she was not beautiful, she was vivid, changeful, coloured, and
pretty with a thousand various prettinesses; and her eyes, if they
indeed rolled too consciously, yet rolled to purpose. They were her
most attractive feature, yet they continually bore eloquent false
witness to her thoughts; for while she herself, in the depths of her
immature, unsoftened heart, was given altogether to manlike ambition
and the desire of power, the eyes were by turns bold, inviting,
fiery, melting, and artful, like the eyes of a rapacious siren. And
artful, in a sense, she was. Chafing that she was not a man, and
could not shine by action, she had conceived a woman's part, of
answerable domination; she sought to subjugate for by-ends, to rain
influence and be fancy free; and, while she loved not man, loved to
see man obey her. It is a common girl's ambition. Such was perhaps
that lady of the glove, who sent her lover to the lions. But the
snare is laid alike for male and female, and the world most artfully
contrived.
Near her, in a low chair, Gondremark had arranged his limbs into a
cat-like attitude, high-shouldered, stooping, and submiss. The
formidable blue jowl of the man, and the dull bilious eye, set
perhaps a higher value on his evident desire to please. His face
was marked by capacity, temper, and a kind of bold, piratical
dishonesty which it would be calumnious to call deceit. His
manners, as he smiled upon the Princess, were over-fine, yet hardly
elegant.
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