She led Gretchen to a marble bench and sat down.
"Gretchen, Highness."
"Well, Gretchen, sit down."
"In your presence, Highness?" aghast.
"Don't bother about my presence on a morning like this. Sit down."
This was a command and Gretchen obeyed with alacrity. It would not be difficult, thought Gretchen, to love a princess like this, who was not only lovely but sensible. The two sat mutely. They were strangely alike. Their eyes nearly matched, their hair, even the shape of their faces. They were similarly molded, too; only, one was slender and graceful, after the manner of fashion, while the other was slender and graceful directly from the hands of nature. The health of outdoors was visible in their fine skins and clear eyes. The marked difference lay, of course, in their hands. The princess had never toiled with her fingers except on the piano. Gretchen had plucked geese and dug vegetables with hers. They were rough, but toil had not robbed them of their natural grace.
"How was she?" her highness asked.
"About the same, Highness."
"Have you wondered why she should write to me?"
"Highness, it was natural that I should," was Gretchen's frank admission.
"She took me in when nobody knew who I was, clothed and fed me, and taught me music so that some day I should not be helpless when the battle of life began. Ah," impulsively, "had I my way she would be housed in the palace, not in the lonely Krumerweg. But my father does not know that she is in Dreiberg; and we dare not tell him, for he still believes that she had something to do with my abduction." Then she stopped. She was strangely making this peasant her confidante. What a whim!
"Highness, that could not be."
"No, Gretchen; she had nothing to do with it." Her highness leveled her gaze at the flowers, but her eyes saw only the garret or the barnlike loneliness of the opera during rehearsals.
Gretchen did not move. She saw that her highness was dreaming; and she herself had dreams.
"Do you like music?"
"Highness, I am always singing."
"La-la—la!" sang the princess capriciously.
"La-la—la!" sang Gretchen smiling. Her voice was not purer or sweeter; it was merely stronger, having been accustomed to the open air.
"Brava!" cried the princess, dropping book and whip and folding the note inside the book. "Who taught you to sing?"
"Nobody, highness."
"What do you do?"
"I am a goose-girl; in the fall and winter I work at odd times in the Black Eagle."
"The Black Eagle? A tavern?"
"Yes, Highness."
"Tell me all about yourself."
This was easy for Gretchen; there was so little.
"Neither mother nor father. Our lives are something alike. A handsome girl like you must have a sweetheart."
Gretchen blushed. "Yes, Highness. I am to be married soon. He is a vintner. I would not trade him for your king, Highness," with a spice of boldness.
Her highness did not take offense; rather she liked this frankness. In truth, she liked any one who spoke to her on equal footing; it was a taste of the old days when she herself could have chosen a vintner and married him, with none to say her nay. Now she was only a pretty bird in a gilded cage. She could fly, but whenever she did so she blundered painfully against the bright wires. If there was any envy between these two, it existed in the heart of the princess only. To be free like this, to come and go at will, to love where the heart spoke! She surrendered to another vagrant impulse.
"Gretchen, I do not think I shall marry the king of Jugendheit."
Gretchen grew red with pride. Her highness was telling her state secrets!
"You love some one else, Highness?" How should a goose-girl know that such a question was indelicate?
Her highness did not blush; the color in her cheeks receded. She fondled the heart-shaped locket which she invariably wore round her throat. That this peasant girl should thus boldly put a question she herself had never dared to press!
"You must not ask questions like that, Gretchen."
"Pardon, Highness; I did not think." Gretchen was disturbed.
But the princess comforted her with: "I know it. There are some questions which should not be asked even by the heart."
This was not understandable to Gretchen; but the locket pleased her eye. Her highness, observing her interest, slipped the trinket from her neck and laid it in Gretchen's hand.
"Open it," she said. "It is a picture of my mother, whom I do not recollect having ever seen. Wait," as Gretchen turned it about helplessly.
"I will open it for you." Click!
Gretchen sighed deeply. To have had a mother so fair and pretty! She hadn't an idea how her own mother had looked; indeed, being sensible and not given much to conjuring, she had rarely bothered her head about it. Still, as she gazed at this portrait, the sense of her isolation and loneliness drew down upon her, and she in her turn sought the flowers and saw them not. After a while she closed the locket and returned it.
"So you love music?" picking up the safer thread.
"Ah, yes, Highness."
"Do you ever go to the opera?"
"As often as I can afford. I am very poor."
"I will give you a ticket for the season. How can I reward you for bringing this message? Don't have any false pride. Ask for something."
"Well, then, Highness, give me an order on the grand duke's head vintner for a place."
"For the man who is to become your husband?"
"Yes, Highness."
"You shall have it to-morrow. Now, come with me. I am going to take you to Herr Ernst. He is the director of the opera. He rehearses in the court theater this morning."
Gretchen, undetermined whether she was waking or dreaming, followed the princess. She was serenely unafraid, to her own great wonder. Who could describe her sensations as she passed through marble halls, up marble staircases, over great rugs so soft that her step faltered? Her wooden shoes made a clatter whenever they left the rugs, but she stepped as lightly as she could. She heard music and voices presently, and the former she recognized. As her highness entered the Bijou Theater, the Herr Direktor stopped the music. In the little gallery, which served as the royal box, sat several ladies and gentlemen of the court, the grand duke being among them. Her highness nodded at them brightly.
"Good morning, Herr Direktor."
"Good morning, your Highness."
"I have brought you a prima donna," touching Gretchen with her whip.
The Herr Direktor showed his teeth; her highness was always playing some jest.
"What shall she sing in, your Highness? We are rehearsing The Bohemian Girl."
The chorus and singers on the little stage exchanged smiles.
"I want your first violin," said her highness.
A youth stood up in the orchestral pit.
"Now, your Highness?" said the Herr Direktor.
"Try her voice."
And the Herr Direktor saw that she was not smiling. He bade the violinist to draw his bow over a single note.
"Imitate it, Gretchen," commanded her highness; "and don't be afraid of the Herr Direktor or of the ladies and gentlemen in the gallery."
Gretchen lifted her voice. It was sweeter and mellower than the violin.
"Again!" the Herr Direktor cried, no longer curious.
Without apparent effort Gretchen passed from one note to another, now high, now low, or strong or soft; a trill, a run. The violinist, of his own accord, began the jewel song from Faust. Gretchen did not know the words, but she carried the melody without mishap. And then, I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls. This song she knew word for word, and ah, she sang it with strange and haunting tenderness! One by one the musicians dropped their instruments to their knees. The grand duke in the gallery leaned over the velvet-buffered railing. All realized that a great voice was being tried before them. The Herr Direktor struck his music-stand sharply. It was enough.
"Your highness has played a fine jest this day. Where does madame your guest sing, in Berlin or Vienna?"
"In neither," answered her highness, mightily gratified with Gretchen's success. "She lives in Dreiberg, and till this morning I doubt if I ever saw her before."
The Herr Direktor stared blankly from her highness to Gretchen, and back to her highness again. Then he grasped it. Here was one of those moments when the gods make gifts to mortals.
"Can you read music?" he asked.
"No, Herr," said Gretchen.
"That is bad. You have a great voice, Fräulein. Well, I shall teach you. I shall make you a great singer. It is hard work."
"I have always worked hard."
"Good! Your Highness, a thousand thanks! What is your name?" to Gretchen. She told him. "It is a good name. Come to me Monday at the opera and I shall put you into good hands. Some day you will be rich, and I shall become great because I found you."
Then, with the artist's positive indifference to the presence of exalted blood, he turned his back upon the two young women and roused his men from the trance.
"So, Gretchen," said her highness, when the two came out again into the garden, "you are to be rich and famous. That will be fine."
"Thanks, Highness, thanks! God grant the day to come when I may be of service to you!" Gretchen kissed the hands of her benefactress.
"Whenever you wish to see the gardens," added the princess, "the gates will be open for you."
As Gretchen went back to the Krumerweg her wooden shoes were golden slippers and her rough homespun, silk. Rich! Famous! She saw the opera ablaze with lights, she heard the roll of applause. She saw the horn of plenty pouring its largess from the fair sky. Rainbow dreams! But Gretchen never became a prima donna. There was something different on the knees of the gods.