Prince Otto
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Robert Louis Stevenson >> Prince Otto
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THE Countess left poor Otto with a caress and buffet simultaneously
administered. The welcome word about his wife and the virtuous
ending of his interview should doubtless have delighted him. But
for all that, as he shouldered the bag of money and set forward to
rejoin his groom, he was conscious of many aching sensibilities. To
have gone wrong and to have been set right makes but a double trial
for man's vanity. The discovery of his own weakness and possible
unfaith had staggered him to the heart; and to hear, in the same
hour, of his wife's fidelity from one who loved her not, increased
the bitterness of the surprise.
He was about half-way between the fountain and the Flying Mercury
before his thoughts began to be clear; and he was surprised to find
them resentful. He paused in a kind of temper, and struck with his
hand a little shrub. Thence there arose instantly a cloud of
awakened sparrows, which as instantly dispersed and disappeared into
the thicket. He looked at them stupidly, and when they were gone
continued staring at the stars. 'I am angry. By what right? By
none!' he thought; but he was still angry. He cursed Madame von
Rosen and instantly repented. Heavy was the money on his shoulders.
When he reached the fountain, he did, out of ill-humour and parade,
an unpardonable act. He gave the money bodily to the dishonest
groom. 'Keep this for me,' he said, 'until I call for it to-morrow.
It is a great sum, and by that you will judge that I have not
condemned you.' And he strode away ruffling, as if he had done
something generous. It was a desperate stroke to re-enter at the
point of the bayonet into his self-esteem; and, like all such, it
was fruitless in the end. He got to bed with the devil, it
appeared: kicked and tumbled till the grey of the morning; and then
fell inopportunely into a leaden slumber, and awoke to find it ten.
To miss the appointment with old Killian after all, had been too
tragic a miscarriage: and he hurried with all his might, found the
groom (for a wonder) faithful to his trust, and arrived only a few
minutes before noon in the guest-chamber of the Morning Star.
Killian was there in his Sunday's best and looking very gaunt and
rigid; a lawyer from Brandenau stood sentinel over his outspread
papers; and the groom and the landlord of the inn were called to
serve as witnesses. The obvious deference of that great man, the
innkeeper, plainly affected the old farmer with surprise; but it was
not until Otto had taken the pen and signed that the truth flashed
upon him fully. Then, indeed, he was beside himself.
'His Highness!' he cried, 'His Highness!' and repeated the
exclamation till his mind had grappled fairly with the facts. Then
he turned to the witnesses. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'you dwell in a
country highly favoured by God; for of all generous gentlemen, I
will say it on my conscience, this one is the king. I am an old
man, and I have seen good and bad, and the year of the great famine;
but a more excellent gentleman, no, never.'
'We know that,' cried the landlord, 'we know that well in Grunewald.
If we saw more of his Highness we should be the better pleased.'
'It is the kindest Prince,' began the groom, and suddenly closed his
mouth upon a sob, so that every one turned to gaze upon his emotion
- Otto not last; Otto struck with remorse, to see the man so
grateful.
Then it was the lawyer's turn to pay a compliment. 'I do not know
what Providence may hold in store,' he said, 'but this day should be
a bright one in the annals of your reign. The shouts of armies
could not be more eloquent than the emotion on these honest faces.'
And the Brandenau lawyer bowed, skipped, stepped back, and took
snuff, with the air of a man who has found and seized an
opportunity.
'Well, young gentleman,' said Killian, 'if you will pardon me the
plainness of calling you a gentleman, many a good day's work you
have done, I doubt not, but never a better, or one that will be
better blessed; and whatever, sir, may be your happiness and triumph
in that high sphere to which you have been called, it will be none
the worse, sir, for an old man's blessing!'
The scene had almost assumed the proportions of an ovation; and when
the Prince escaped he had but one thought: to go wherever he was
most sure of praise. His conduct at the board of council occurred
to him as a fair chapter; and this evoked the memory of Gotthold.
To Gotthold he would go.
Gotthold was in the library as usual, and laid down his pen, a
little angrily, on Otto's entrance. 'Well,' he said, 'here you
are.'
'Well,' returned Otto, 'we made a revolution, I believe.'
'It is what I fear,' returned the Doctor.
'How?' said Otto. 'Fear? Fear is the burnt child. I have learned
my strength and the weakness of the others; and I now mean to
govern.'
Gotthold said nothing, but he looked down and smoothed his chin.
'You disapprove?' cried Otto. 'You are a weather-cock.'
'On the contrary,' replied the Doctor. 'My observation has
confirmed my fears. It will not do, Otto, not do.'
'What will not do?' demanded the Prince, with a sickening stab of
pain.
'None of it,' answered Gotthold. 'You are unfitted for a life of
action; you lack the stamina, the habit, the restraint, the
patience. Your wife is greatly better, vastly better; and though
she is in bad hands, displays a very different aptitude. She is a
woman of affairs; you are - dear boy, you are yourself. I bid you
back to your amusements; like a smiling dominie, I give you holidays
for life. Yes,' he continued, 'there is a day appointed for all
when they shall turn again upon their own philosophy. I had grown
to disbelieve impartially in all; and if in the atlas of the
sciences there were two charts I disbelieved in more than all the
rest, they were politics and morals. I had a sneaking kindness for
your vices; as they were negative, they flattered my philosophy; and
I called them almost virtues. Well, Otto, I was wrong; I have
forsworn my sceptical philosophy; and I perceive your faults to be
unpardonable. You are unfit to be a Prince, unfit to be a husband.
And I give you my word, I would rather see a man capably doing evil
than blundering about good.'
Otto was still silent, in extreme dudgeon.
Presently the Doctor resumed: 'I will take the smaller matter first:
your conduct to your wife. You went, I hear, and had an
explanation. That may have been right or wrong; I know not; at
least, you had stirred her temper. At the council she insults you;
well, you insult her back - a man to a woman, a husband to his wife,
in public! Next upon the back of this, you propose - the story runs
like wildfire - to recall the power of signature. Can she ever
forgive that? a woman - a young woman - ambitious, conscious of
talents beyond yours? Never, Otto. And to sum all, at such a
crisis in your married life, you get into a window corner with that
ogling dame von Rosen. I do not dream that there was any harm; but
I do say it was an idle disrespect to your wife. Why, man, the
woman is not decent.'
'Gotthold,' said Otto, 'I will hear no evil of the Countess.'
'You will certainly hear no good of her,' returned Gotthold; 'and if
you wish your wife to be the pink of nicety, you should clear your
court of demi-reputations.'
'The commonplace injustice of a by-word,' Otto cried. 'The
partiality of sex. She is a demirep; what then is Gondremark? Were
she a man - '
'It would be all one,' retorted Gotthold roughly. 'When I see a
man, come to years of wisdom, who speaks in double-meanings and is
the braggart of his vices, I spit on the other side. "You, my
friend," say I, "are not even a gentleman." Well, she's not even a
lady.'
'She is the best friend I have, and I choose that she shall be
respected,' Otto said.
'If she is your friend, so much the worse,' replied the Doctor. 'It
will not stop there.'
'Ah!' cried Otto, 'there is the charity of virtue! All evil in the
spotted fruit. But I can tell you, sir, that you do Madame von
Rosen prodigal injustice.'
'You can tell me!' said the Doctor shrewdly. 'Have you, tried? have
you been riding the marches?'
The blood came into Otto's face.
'Ah!' cried Gotthold, 'look at your wife and blush! There's a wife
for a man to marry and then lose! She's a carnation, Otto. The
soul is in her eyes.'
'You have changed your note for Seraphina, I perceive,' said Otto.
'Changed it!' cried the Doctor, with a flush. 'Why, when was it
different? But I own I admired her at the council. When she sat
there silent, tapping with her foot, I admired her as I might a
hurricane. Were I one of those who venture upon matrimony, there
had been the prize to tempt me! She invites, as Mexico invited
Cortez; the enterprise is hard, the natives are unfriendly - I
believe them cruel too - but the metropolis is paved with gold and
the breeze blows out of paradise. Yes, I could desire to be that
conqueror. But to philander with von Rosen! never! Senses? I
discard them; what are they? - pruritus! Curiosity? Reach me my
Anatomy!'
'To whom do you address yourself?' cried Otto. 'Surely you, of all
men, know that I love my wife!'
'O, love!' cried Gotthold; 'love is a great word; it is in all the
dictionaries. If you had loved, she would have paid you back. What
does she ask? A little ardour!'
'It is hard to love for two,' replied the Prince.
'Hard? Why, there's the touchstone! O, I know my poets!' cried the
Doctor. 'We are but dust and fire, too and to endure life's
scorching; and love, like the shadow of a great rock, should lend
shelter and refreshment, not to the lover only, but to his mistress
and to the children that reward them; and their very friends should
seek repose in the fringes of that peace. Love is not love that
cannot build a home. And you call it love to grudge and quarrel and
pick faults? You call it love to thwart her to her face, and bandy
insults? Love!'
'Gotthold, you are unjust. I was then fighting for my country,'
said the Prince.
'Ay, and there's the worst of all,' returned the Doctor. 'You could
not even see that you were wrong; that being where they were,
retreat was ruin.'
Why, you supported me!' cried Otto.
'I did. I was a fool like you,' replied Gotthold. 'But now my eyes
are open. If you go on as you have started, disgrace this fellow
Gondremark, and publish the scandal of your divided house, there
will befall a most abominable thing in Grunewald. A revolution,
friend - a revolution.'
'You speak strangely for a red,' said Otto.
'A red republican, but not a revolutionary,' returned the Doctor.
'An ugly thing is a Grunewalder drunk! One man alone can save the
country from this pass, and that is the double-dealer Gondremark,
with whom I conjure you to make peace. It will not be you; it never
can be you:- you, who can do nothing, as your wife said, but trade
upon your station - you, who spent the hours in begging money! And
in God's name, what for? Why money? What mystery of idiocy was
this?'
'It was to no ill end. It was to buy a farm,' quoth Otto sulkily.
'To buy a farm!' cried Gotthold. 'Buy a farm!'
'Well, what then?' returned Otto. 'I have bought it, if you come to
that.'
Gotthold fairly bounded on his seat. 'And how that?' he cried.
'How?' repeated Otto, startled.
'Ay, verily, how!' returned the Doctor. 'How came you by the
money?'
The Prince's countenance darkened. 'That is my affair,' said he.
'You see you are ashamed,' retorted Gotthold. 'And so you bought a
farm in the hour of our country's need - doubtless to be ready for
the abdication; and I put it that you stole the funds. There are
not three ways of getting money: there are but two: to earn and
steal. And now, when you have combined Charles the Fifth and Long-
fingered Tom, you come to me to fortify your vanity! But I will
clear my mind upon this matter: until I know the right and wrong of
the transaction, I put my hand behind my back. A man may be the
pitifullest prince; he must be a spotless gentleman.'
The Prince had gotten to his feet, as pale as paper. Gotthold,' he
said, 'you drive me beyond bounds. Beware, sir, beware!'
'Do you threaten me, friend Otto?' asked the Doctor grimly. 'That
would be a strange conclusion.'
'When have you ever known me use my power in any private animosity?'
cried Otto. 'To any private man your words were an unpardonable
insult, but at me you shoot in full security, and I must turn aside
to compliment you on your plainness. I must do more than pardon, I
must admire, because you have faced this - this formidable monarch,
like a Nathan before David. You have uprooted an old kindness, sir,
with an unsparing hand. You leave me very bare. My last bond is
broken; and though I take Heaven to witness that I sought to do the
right, I have this reward: to find myself alone. You say I am no
gentleman; yet the sneers have been upon your side; and though I can
very well perceive where you have lodged your sympathies, I will
forbear the taunt.'
'Otto, are you insane?' cried Gotthold, leaping up. 'Because I ask
you how you came by certain moneys, and because you refuse - '
'Herr von Hohenstockwitz, I have ceased to invite your aid in my
affairs,' said Otto. 'I have heard all that I desire, and you have
sufficiently trampled on my vanity. It may be that I cannot govern,
it may be that I cannot love - you tell me so with every mark of
honesty; but God has granted me one virtue, and I can still forgive.
I forgive you; even in this hour of passion, I can perceive my
faults and your excuses; and if I desire that in future I may be
spared your conversation, it is not, sir, from resentment - not
resentment - but, by Heaven, because no man on earth could endure to
be so rated. You have the satisfaction to see your sovereign weep;
and that person whom you have so often taunted with his happiness
reduced to the last pitch of solitude and misery. No, - I will hear
nothing; I claim the last word, sir, as your Prince; and that last
word shall be - forgiveness.'
And with that Otto was gone from the apartment, and Doctor Gotthold
was left alone with the most conflicting sentiments of sorrow,
remorse, and merriment; walking to and fro before his table, and
asking himself, with hands uplifted, which of the pair of them was
most to blame for this unhappy rupture. Presently, he took from a
cupboard a bottle of Rhine wine and a goblet of the deep Bohemian
ruby. The first glass a little warmed and comforted his bosom; with
the second he began to look down upon these troubles from a sunny
mountain; yet a while, and filled with this false comfort and
contemplating life throughout a golden medium, he owned to himself,
with a flush, a smile, and a half-pleasurable sigh, that he had been
somewhat over plain in dealing with his cousin. 'He said the truth,
too,' added the penitent librarian, 'for in my monkish fashion I
adore the Princess.' And then, with a still deepening flush and a
certain stealth, although he sat all alone in that great gallery, he
toasted Seraphina to the dregs.
CHAPTER XI - PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE FIRST
SHE BEGUILES THE BARON
AT a sufficiently late hour, or to be more exact, at three in the
afternoon, Madame von Rosen issued on the world. She swept
downstairs and out across the garden, a black mantilla thrown over
her head, and the long train of her black velvet dress ruthlessly
sweeping in the dirt.
At the other end of that long garden, and back to back with the
villa of the Countess, stood the large mansion where the Prime
Minister transacted his affairs and pleasures. This distance, which
was enough for decency by the easy canons of Mittwalden, the
Countess swiftly traversed, opened a little door with a key, mounted
a flight of stairs, and entered unceremoniously into Gondremark's
study. It was a large and very high apartment; books all about the
walls, papers on the table, papers on the floor; here and there a
picture, somewhat scant of drapery; a great fire glowing and flaming
in the blue tiled hearth; and the daylight streaming through a
cupola above. In the midst of this sat the great Baron Gondremark
in his shirt-sleeves, his business for that day fairly at an end,
and the hour arrived for relaxation. His expression, his very
nature, seemed to have undergone a fundamental change. Gondremark
at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty. He had an
air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality
sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside
his sly and sinister expression. He lolled there, sunning his bulk
before the fire, a noble animal.
'Hey!' he cried. 'At last!'
The Countess stepped into the room in silence, threw herself on a
chair, and crossed her legs. In her lace and velvet, with a good
display of smooth black stocking and of snowy petticoat, and with
the refined profile of her face and slender plumpness of her body,
she showed in singular contrast to the big, black, intellectual
satyr by the fire.
'How often do you send for me?' she cried. 'It is compromising.'
Gondremark laughed. 'Speaking of that,' said he, 'what in the
devil's name were you about? You were not home till morning.'
'I was giving alms,' she said.
The Baron again laughed loud and long, for in his shirt-sleeves he
was a very mirthful creature. 'It is fortunate I am not jealous,'
he remarked. 'But you know my way: pleasure and liberty go hand in
hand. I believe what I believe; it is not much, but I believe it. -
But now to business. Have you not read my letter?'
'No,' she said; 'my head ached.'
'Ah, well! then I have news indeed!' cried Gondremark. 'I was mad
to see you all last night and all this morning: for yesterday
afternoon I brought my long business to a head; the ship has come
home; one more dead lift, and I shall cease to fetch and carry for
the Princess Ratafia. Yes, 'tis done. I have the order all in
Ratafia's hand; I carry it on my heart. At the hour of twelve to-
night, Prince Featherhead is to be taken in his bed and, like the
bambino, whipped into a chariot; and by next morning he will command
a most romantic prospect from the donjon of the Felsenburg.
Farewell, Featherhead! The war goes on, the girl is in my hand; I
have long been indispensable, but now I shall be sole. I have
long,' he added exultingly, 'long carried this intrigue upon my
shoulders, like Samson with the gates of Gaza; now I discharge that
burthen.'
She had sprung to her feet a little paler. 'Is this true?' she
cried.
'I tell you a fact,' he asseverated. 'The trick is played.'
'I will never believe it,' she said. 'An order in her own hand? I
will never believe it, Heinrich.'
'I swear to you,' said he.
'O, what do you care for oaths - or I either? What would you swear
by? Wine, women, and song? It is not binding,' she said. She had
come quite close up to him and laid her hand upon his arm. 'As for
the order - no, Heinrich, never! I will never believe it. I will
die ere I believe it. You have some secret purpose - what, I cannot
guess - but not one word of it is true.'
'Shall I show it you?' he asked.
'You cannot,' she answered. 'There is no such thing.'
'Incorrigible Sadducee!' he cried. 'Well, I will convert you; you
shall see the order.' He moved to a chair where he had thrown his
coat, and then drawing forth and holding out a paper, 'Read,' said
he.
She took it greedily, and her eye flashed as she perused it.
'Hey!' cried the Baron, 'there falls a dynasty, and it was I that
felled it; and I and you inherit!' He seemed to swell in stature;
and next moment, with a laugh, he put his hand forward. Give me the
dagger,' said he.
But she whisked the paper suddenly behind her back and faced him,
lowering. 'No, no,' she said. 'You and I have first a point to
settle. Do you suppose me blind? She could never have given that
paper but to one man, and that man her lover. Here you stand - her
lover, her accomplice, her master - O, I well believe it, for I know
your power. But what am I?' she cried; 'I, whom you deceive!'
'Jealousy!' cried Gondremark. 'Anna, I would never have believed
it! But I declare to you by all that's credible that I am not her
lover. I might be, I suppose; but I never yet durst risk the
declaration. The chit is so unreal; a mincing doll; she will and
she will not; there is no counting on her, by God! And hitherto I
have had my own way without, and keep the lover in reserve. And I
say, Anna,' he added with severity, 'you must break yourself of this
new fit, my girl; there must be no combustion. I keep the creature
under the belief that I adore her; and if she caught a breath of you
and me, she is such a fool, prude, and dog in the manger, that she
is capable of spoiling all.'
'All very fine,' returned the lady. 'With whom do you pass your
days? and which am I to believe, your words or your actions?'
'Anna, the devil take you, are you blind?' cried Gondremark. 'You
know me. Am I likely to care for such a preciosa? 'Tis hard that
we should have been together for so long, and you should still take
me for a troubadour. But if there is one thing that I despise and
deprecate, it is all such figures in Berlin wool. Give me a human
woman - like myself. You are my mate; you were made for me; you
amuse me like the play. And what have I to gain that I should
pretend to you? If I do not love you, what use are you to me? Why,
none. It is as clear as noonday.'
'Do you love me, Heinrich?' she asked, languishing. 'Do you truly?'
'I tell you,' he cried, 'I love you next after myself. I should be
all abroad if I had lost you.'
'Well, then,' said she, folding up the paper and putting it calmly
in her pocket, 'I will believe you, and I join the plot. Count upon
me. At midnight, did you say? It is Gordon, I see, that you have
charged with it. Excellent; he will stick at nothing - '
Gondremark watched her suspiciously. 'Why do you take the paper?'
he demanded. 'Give it here.'
'No,' she returned; 'I mean to keep it. It is I who must prepare
the stroke; you cannot manage it without me; and to do my best I
must possess the paper. Where shall I find Gordon? In his rooms?'
She spoke with a rather feverish self-possession.
'Anna,' he said sternly, the black, bilious countenance of his
palace ROLE taking the place of the more open favour of his hours at
home, 'I ask you for that paper. Once, twice, and thrice.'
'Heinrich,' she returned, looking him in the face, 'take care. I
will put up with no dictation.'
Both looked dangerous; and the silence lasted for a measurable
interval of time. Then she made haste to have the first word; and
with a laugh that rang clear and honest, 'Do not be a child,' she
said. 'I wonder at you. If your assurances are true, you can have
no reason to mistrust me, nor I to play you false. The difficulty
is to get the Prince out of the palace without scandal. His valets
are devoted; his chamberlain a slave; and yet one cry might ruin
all.'
'They must be overpowered,' he said, following her to the new
ground, 'and disappear along with him.'
'And your whole scheme along with them!' she cried. 'He does not
take his servants when he goes a-hunting: a child could read the
truth. No, no; the plan is idiotic; it must be Ratafia's. But hear
me. You know the Prince worships me?'
'I know,' he said. 'Poor Featherhead, I cross his destiny!'
'Well now,' she continued, 'what if I bring him alone out of the
palace, to some quiet corner of the Park - the Flying Mercury, for
instance? Gordon can be posted in the thicket; the carriage wait
behind the temple; not a cry, not a scuffle, not a footfall; simply,
the Prince vanishes! - What do you say? Am I an able ally? Are my
BEAUX YUEX of service? Ah, Heinrich, do not lose your Anna! - she
has power!'
He struck with his open hand upon the chimney. 'Witch!' he said,
'there is not your match for devilry in Europe. Service! the thing
runs on wheels.'
'Kiss me, then, and let me go. I must not miss my Featherhead,' she
said.
'Stay, stay,' said the Baron; 'not so fast. I wish, upon my soul,
that I could trust you; but you are, out and in, so whimsical a
devil that I dare not. Hang it, Anna, no; it's not possible!'
'You doubt me, Heinrich?' she cried.
'Doubt is not the word,' said he. 'I know you. Once you were clear
of me with that paper in your pocket, who knows what you would do
with it? - not you, at least - nor I. You see,' he added, shaking
his head paternally upon the Countess, 'you are as vicious as a
monkey.'
'I swear to you,' she cried, 'by my salvation . . . '
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