On the Heights: A Novel

CHAPTER XVII

The night was a bad one. The crown prince suffered because of the fright which the Moor had given his foster-mother. Doctor Gunther sat up all night, in the adjoining room, so as to be within ready call, and was constant in his inquiries as to Walpurga and the child. He instructed Mademoiselle Kramer never again to allow the nurse to leave the room without his permission.

To Walpurga this imprisonment was welcome, as she wished to have nothing more to do with the whole world; for the child filled her soul and, while she lay on the sofa, she vowed to God that nothing else should enter her mind. She looked at the new clothes that were spread out on the large table and shook her head; she no longer cared for the trumpery. Indeed, she almost hated it, for had it not led her into evil? and had not the punishment quickly followed?

Walpurga's sleep was broken and fitful, and whenever she closed her eyes, she beheld herself pursued by the Moor. It was not until near daybreak, that she and the child slept soundly. The great ceremony could therefore take place at the appointed time.

Baum brought the beautiful pillows and the brocaded coverlet embroidered with two wild animals. While passing Walpurga, he softly whispered:

"Keep a brave heart, so that you don't get sick again; for if you do, they will discharge you at once. I mean well by you, and that's why I say so."

He said this without moving a feature, for Mademoiselle Kramer was to know nothing of it.

Walpurga looked after him in amazement; and Baum, indeed, presented quite an odd appearance, in his gray linen undress uniform.

"And so they'll send you away when you get sick," thought she to herself. "I'm a cow. They're right, There's no longer any room in the stable for a cow that's barren."

"I and thou and the miller's cow-" said she, to the prince, as she again took him to her bosom, while she laughed and sang:

Walpurga would have said and sung much more that day, were it not for the constant hurrying to and fro in the prince's apartments. Countess Brinkenstein came in person, and said to Walpurga:

"Have you not all sorts of secret charms which you place under the pillow for the child's sake?"

"Yes, a twig of mistletoe will do, or a nail dropped from a horse-shoe; I'd get them quick enough if I were at home; but I've nothing of the sort here."

Walpurga felt quite proud while telling what she knew of the secret charms; but grew alarmed when she looked at Countess Brinkenstein and saw that her face wore an expression of displeasure.

"Mademoiselle Kramer," said she, "you will be held responsible if this peasant woman attempts to practice any of her superstitious nonsense with the child."

Not a word of this was addressed to Walpurga, who had persuaded herself into believing that she was the first person in the palace, and now, for the first time, experienced the mortification of being ignored, just as if she were nothing more than empty air.

"I won't lose my temper, in spite of you. And I won't do you the favor to get sick, so that you may send me off," muttered Walpurga, laughing to herself, while the countess withdrew.

And now followed a beautiful and happy hour. Two maidens came, who dressed the prince. Walpurga also allowed them to dress her, and greatly enjoyed being thus waited upon.

All the bells, throughout the city, were ringing; the chimes of the palace tower joined in the merry din, and almost caused the vast building to tremble. And now Baum came. He looked magnificent. The richly-embroidered uniform with the silver lace, the scarlet vest embroidered with gold, the short, gray-plush breeches, the white stockings, the buckled shoes-all seemed as if they had come from some enchanted closet, and Baum well knew that he was cutting a grand figure. He smiled when Walpurga stared at him, and knew what that look meant. He could afford to wait.

"One should not attempt to reap too soon," had been a favorite saying of Baroness Steigeneck's valet, and he knew what he was about.

Baum announced a chamberlain and two pages, who entered soon afterward.

Heavy steps and words of command were heard from the adjoining room. The doors were opened by a servant and a number of cuirassiers entered the room. They were a detachment from the regiment to which the prince would belong, as soon as he had received his name.

The procession that accompanied the prince moved at the appointed hour. The chamberlain walked in advance and then came Mademoiselle Kramer and Walpurga, the pages bringing up the rear. It was fortunate for Walpurga that Baum was at her side, for she felt so timid and bashful, that she looked about her as if imploring aid. Baum understood it all and whimpered to her: "Keep up your courage, Walpurga!" She merely nodded her thanks, for she could not utter a word. Bearing the child on her arms, she passed through the crowd of cuirassiers who, with drawn swords and glittering coats of mail, stood there like so many statues. Suddenly, she thought of where she had been last Sunday at the same hour. If Hansei could only see this, too. And Franz, tailor Schenck's son, is in the cuirassiers-perhaps he, too, is among those lifeless ones; but they must be alive, for their eyes sparkle. She looked up, but did not recognize the tailor's son, although he was in the line.

The prince's train, with its escort, passed on to the so-called grand center gallery, where the procession was forming.

Walpurga had been told to seat herself with the prince on the lowest step of the throne, and when she looked about her she beheld a sea of splendor and beauty. There were richly embroidered costumes, lovely women, their heads adorned with flowers, and jewels that sparkled like dew-drops on the meadow at early morn.

"Good-morning, Walpurga! Pray don't rise," said a pleasant voice, addressing her. It was Countess Irma. But she had scarcely commenced speaking to her, when the lord steward thrice struck the floor with his gold-headed stick, the diamonds on which sparkled brightly.

A train of halberdiers, wearing gay plumes on their helmets, marched in from a side apartment. And then the king came. He carried his helmet in his left hand and at his side. His face was radiant with happiness.

At his side walked the duchess, a diamond crown on her head, and with two pages bearing her long silk train. She was followed by a numerous and brilliant suite.

Irma had hastened to her appropriate place. The bells were slowly tolling, and the procession moved. At the entrance of the palace chapel, the duchess took the child from the nurse and carried it up to the altar, where priests, clad in splendid robes, were awaiting it, and where countless lights were burning.

Walpurga followed, feeling as if bereft-not only as if the clothes had been torn from her body, but as if the body had been rent from her soul. The child cried aloud, as if aware of what was taking place, but its voice was drowned by the tones of the organ and choir. The whole church was filled with a mighty volume of sound, which descended from the gallery and was echoed back from the floor beneath, like sullen, muttering thunder. Involuntarily, Walpurga fell on her knees at the altar-there was no need to order her to do so.

Choir, organ and orchestra burst forth with a mighty volume of sound, and Walpurga, overwhelmed with awe and surprise, imagined that the end of the world had come and that the painted angels on the ceiling, – aye, the very pillars, too-were swelling the heavenly harmonies.

Suddenly all was silent again.

The child received its names. One would not suffice: there were eight; a whole section of the calendar had been emptied for its benefit.

But from that moment until she reached her room, Walpurga knew nothing of what had happened.

When she found herself alone with Mademoiselle Kramer, she asked:

"Well, and what am I to call my prince?"

"None of us know. He has three names until he succeeds to the throne, when he himself selects one, under which he reigns, and which is stamped on the coins."

"I've something to tell you," said Walpurga, "and mind you don't forget it. You must send me the first ducat you have stamped with your name and your picture! See! he gives me his hand on it!" cried she, exultingly, when the child stretched out its little hand as if to grasp hers. "Oh, you dear Sunday child! Let the first lady of the bedchamber say it's superstition-it's true, for all. I'm a cow and you're a Sunday child, and Sunday children understand the language of the beasts. But that's only once a year-at midnight on Christmas eve. But as you're a prince, I'm sure you can do more than the rest."

Walpurga was called into the queen's apartment, the dazzling beauty of which suggested a glittering cavern in fairy-land. All was quiet; here nothing was heard of the noisy, bustling crowd overhead. The queen said:

"On that table you will find a roll containing a hundred gold pieces. It is your christening present from my brother and the other sponsors. Does it make you happy?"

"Oh, queen! If the lips on these gold pieces could speak, the hundred together couldn't tell you how happy I am. It's too much! Why, you could buy half our village with it! With that much you could buy-"

"Don't excite yourself! Keep calm! Come here, and I'll give you something else, for myself. May this little ring always remind you of me, and may your hand thus be as if it were mine, doing good to the child."

"Oh my queen! How happy it must make you to be able to speak right out when your heart is full of kind thoughts, and to have it in your power to do so many great and good actions; besides, God must love you very much, to permit so much good to be done by your hand! I thank you with all my heart! And to Him who has given it all to you, a thousand thanks!"

"Walpurga, your words do me more good than all that the archbishop and the rest of them said. I shall not forget them!"

"I don't know what I've said-but it's all your fault! When I'm with you, I-I hardly know how to say it-but I feel as if I were standing before the holy of holies in the church. Oh, what a heavenly creature you are! You're all heart! I'll tell the child of it, and though it doesn't understand what I say, it'll feel it all. From me it shall get only good thoughts of you! I beg your pardon now, if I should ever offend you, even in thought or do anything out of the way-" She could say no more.

The queen motioned Walpurga to be quiet and held out her hand to her; neither spoke another word. Angels were indeed passing through the silent room.

Walpurga went away. It was self-confidence, not boldness, that made her look straight into the faces of the courtiers whom she passed by the way. As far as she was concerned, they did not exist.

When she was with the child again, she said:

"Yes, drink in my whole soul! It's all yours! If you don't become a man in whom God and the world can take delight, you don't deserve a mother like yours!"

Mademoiselle Kramer was amazed at Walpurga's words. But the latter did not care to tell what was passing in her mind. There was perfect silence, and yet she sat there, motionless, as if she could still hear the organ and the singing of the angels.

"It isn't this that makes me so happy," said she, looking at the money once more. "It must be just this way when one gets to heaven and the Lord says: 'I'm glad you've come!' Oh, if I could only fly there now! I don't know what to do with myself."

She loosened all her clothes; the world seemed too close and confined to contain her.

"God be praised! the day's over," said she, when she lay down to rest that evening. "It was a hard day, but a beautiful one; more beautiful than I'll ever see again."

CHAPTER XVIII

"You ask me how I like the great world. The great world, dear Emma, is but a little world, after all. But I can readily understand why they term it 'great.' It has a firmament of its own. Two suns rise daily; I mean their majesties, of course. A gracious glance, or a kind word, from either-and the day is clear and bright. Should they ignore you, the weather is dull and dreary.

"The queen is all feeling, and lives in a transcendental world of her own into which she would fain draw every one. She suggests a 'Jean Paul' born after his time, and is of a tender, clinging disposition, constantly vacillating between the dawn and twilight of emotion, and always avoiding the white light of day. She is exceedingly gracious toward me, but we cannot help feeling that we do not harmonize.

"I know not why it is, but I have of late frequently thought of a saying of my father's: 'Whenever you find yourself on friendly or affectionate terms with any one, imagine how he would seem if he had become your enemy!'

"The thought follows me like a phantom, I know not why. It must be my evil spirit.

"All here regard me as wonderfully naïve, simply because I have the courage to think for myself. I have not inherited the spectacles and tight-lacing of tradition. The world seems to follow the fashion, even in clothing the inside of their heads.

"I admire the first lady of the bedchamber most of all. She is the law incarnate, carefully covered with poudre de riz. The ladies here ridicule her, but I have only pity for those who are obliged to resort to the use of cosmetics. Ah, you can have no idea, my dear Emma, how stupid and bored some persons are when unable to indulge in scandal. There are but few who know how to enjoy themselves innocently. But I am forgetting that I intended to tell you about Countess Brinkenstein.

"She read me a lecture on etiquette. What a pity that I cannot give it you, word for word. She said many pretty things; for instance, – that we have as little right to doubt in matters of etiquette as in religion, that, in either case, reasoning always led to heresy and schism, and that one ought to feel happy to have the law ready made, instead of being obliged to frame it.

"Countess Brinkenstein, like Socrates the peripatetic, teaches by example. In the park of the summer palace there is a jutting rock, from the top of which a fine view can be obtained. It is protected on all sides by an iron rail. 'Do you observe, my dear countess,' said this high priest of etiquette to me-for she seems to have conceived quite an affection for your humble servant-'it is because we know there is a railing, that we feel perfectly safe here. If it were not for that, we should become too dizzy to remain. It is just the same with the laws of court etiquette; remove the railing and there will be some one falling every day.'

"The king enjoys conversing with Brinkenstein and, although decorous and dignified demeanor best pleases him, he is not averse to unconstrained cheerfulness. The queen is too serious; she is always grand organ. But one cannot dance to organ music, and as we are still young, we often feel like dancing. Brinkenstein must have commended me to the king, for he often addresses me, and in a manner that seems to say: 'We understand each other perfectly.'"

"It is a pity, dear Emma, that what I have written above bears no date. I have completely forgotten when I wrote it-auld lang syne, as it says in the pretty Scotch song.

"I feel the justice of your complaint, that my letters are written for myself and not for the one to whom they are addressed; that is, whenever I feel like writing, but not when you happen to wish for news. But you are wrong in charging this to egotism. I am not an egotist. I am wholly absorbed by the impressions of the moment. Ah, why are you not here with me! There is not a day, not a night, not an hour- But I shall do better. That is, I mean to try, at all events.

"The king distinguishes me above all others, and I enjoy the favor of the whole court. If it were not for the demon that ever whispers to me-

"I send you my photograph. We are now wearing wings on our hats, and the feather you see on mine was taken from an eagle that the king shot with his own hand.

"Oh, what lovely days and nights we are having! If one could only do without sleep. I am giving great attention to music and sing nothing but Schumann. His music invests the soul with a magic veil, with a fire that seems to consume while it fills you with happiness, and from the spell of which none can escape, though they try ever so hard. I gladly yield to its influence. I have just been singing 'The heavens have kissed the earth.' It was late at night, and I felt as if I could go on singing forever. You know my habit of repeating the same song again and again; of all things a pot-pourri of the emotions is least to my liking. At last I lay down by the window-who was it that glided past? I dare not say. I do not care to know. There was a humming in the direction of the lamp on my table. A moth-fly had flown into it and had been consumed by the flame. The moth had not wished to die; it had imagined the light to be a glowing flower-cup, and had buried itself in it.

"It was a beautiful death! To die in the summer night, amid song and in the light of the fiery calyx. Good-night!"

"No matter where I am or what I do, I am always excited, without knowing why. But I have it, after all. I am constantly thinking that this letter to you is still lying in my portfolio. If any one at court knew what I have written-I have already been on the point of burning these sheets. I beg of you, destroy them. You will, – will you not? or else conceal them in some safe place. I cannot help it, I must tell you all.

"The queen is very kind to me. Her present condition invests her with a touching, I might almost say, a sacred character.

"'Man is God's temple,' said the archbishop, who paid us a visit yesterday, 'and of no one is this so true as of a young mother; above all, a young royal mother.'

"What a noble thought!

"I now think quite differently of the queen. When she said to me, yesterday: 'Countess Irma, the king speaks of you with great affection, and I am very glad of it,' I thought to myself: Blessed be the etiquette that permits me to bend down before the queen and kiss her hand.

"Her hand is now quite full and round."

"The most cheerful hours are those we spend at breakfast. I do not know how, after such Olympic moments, the rest can content themselves with every-day matters, for I always wing my flight into the boundless realm of music.

"The king is very kind to me. He is of a noble and earnest character. While I was walking with him in the park, yesterday, and we both kept step so beautifully, he said:

"'You seem like a true comrade to me, for we always walk together in perfect step. No woman has ever walked thus with me. With the queen I am always obliged to slacken my usual pace.'

"'That is only of late, I suppose.'

"'No, it is always so. Will you permit me, when we are alone, to address you as my good comrade?'

"We stopped where we were, like two children who have lost their way in the woods and do not know where they are.

"'Let us return,' was all I could say.

"We went back to the palace. I admire the king's self-control, for he at once entered into earnest conversation with his minister. Such self-control can only result from great education and innate mental power.

"But there is one thing more. Let me confide it to you.

"I feel sure that the queen meditates a step which must needs be fraught with evil to the king, to herself, and to who knows how many more. I would have liked to acquaint him with my fears, but I dared not speak of the queen at that time, and Doctor Gunther, the king's physician, had made me afraid to utter a word on the subject. I am talking in riddles, I know. I will explain all to you at some future day, if you remind me of it. In a few weeks, all will be decided. My lips are not sealed, for the queen has confided nothing to me. I have simply reasoned from appearances. But enough of this. I shall no longer torment you with riddles.