III.—THE WARNING.
"Your Highness stayed out very late again last night," said Herr Kalkhun von Leuchtmar, as he entered the sleeping apartment of the Electoral Prince Frederick William, who was still in bed.
"Yes, it is true," replied the Prince, stretching himself at his ease, "I did come home very late last night."
"The chamberlain has already waked your highness three times, and your highness has each time assured him that he would get up, but has each time, it seems, fallen asleep again."
"Yes, I did fall asleep each time," answered Frederick William, in a somewhat irritated tone of voice; "and what of it?"
"Why," said Herr von Leuchtmar pleasantly—"why, the painter Gabriel Nietzel, who arrived yesterday, and, to whom your highness promised to give audience this morning at eight o'clock, has been waiting almost two hours; Count von Berg, on whom your highness was to call at nine o'clock, has been expecting you an hour in vain—the horse has stood saddled in the stable for an hour; and the private secretary Müller, with whom your highness was to prepare to-day a treatise upon fortifications, will probably make no progress whatever with the work."
"It seems that I am not to have the privilege of sleeping as long as I choose," cried the Electoral Prince, with a mocking laugh. "My house moves like clockwork, in which there is no comfort or rest whatever, but where each must perform his prescribed service with mathematical exactness, that the whole be not stopped."
"It is in a house as in a state," said Leuchtmar seriously: "each one, high and low, must do his duty, else the whole machinery stops, and, as your highness very justly remarked, the clockwork either stands still or is at the least put out of order."
"Consequently, the clockwork of my house was disarranged merely because I stayed up two hours later than I have been accustomed to do?"
"Totally disarranged, your highness."
The Prince reddened with displeasure, his eyes flashed, and he had already opened his mouth for an angry reply, when he violently restrained himself.
"I will get up," he said, "and then we can talk more about it."
Herr von Leuchtmar bowed and withdrew to the antechamber. A quarter of an hour, however, had hardly elapsed before the chamberlain issued from the Prince's sleeping apartment, and announced to Herr Kalkhun von Leuchtmar, that breakfast was served, and that his highness, the Electoral Prince, awaited the baron's attendance at this meal in his drawing room. Herr von Leuchtmar hastened to obey the summons, and to repair to the Prince's drawing room. Frederick William seemed not at all conscious of his entrance. He sat on the divan sipping his chocolate, and at the same time restlessly playing with the greyhound that lay at his feet, looking up at him with its gentle, truthful eyes. Herr von Leuchtmar seated himself opposite the Prince, and took his breakfast in silent reserve. Once the Prince's eye scanned the noble, serious countenance of his former tutor, and the expression of perfect repose resting there seemed to pique and irritate him. He jumped up and several times walked briskly up and down the room. Then he paused before Leuchtmar, who had likewise risen, and whose large, dark-blue eyes were turned upon the Prince in gentle sorrow.
"Leuchtmar," said the latter, shortly and quickly, "all is not between us as it should be."
"I have remarked it for some time with pain," replied the baron softly.
"Your highness is out of humor."
"No, I am discontented!" cried the Prince; "and, by heavens, I have a right to be!"
"Will your highness have the kindness to tell me why you are discontented?"
"Yes, I will tell you, for you must know it in order that you may endeavor to alter it. I am discontented, Leuchtmar, because you and Müller will never forget that I have owed respect to you as my teachers."
"Prince," said the baron, lifting his head a little higher—"Prince, have we two behaved ourselves so as no longer to deserve your respect?"
"Respect, indeed; but you confound respect with obedience, and wish me to obey you unreservedly, as if I were still a boy, subject to his teachers."
"While now you would say you are a Prince arrived at years of majority, who no longer needs a teacher, and whose earlier preceptors are now only his subjects, dependent upon him."
"No, I would not say that; and it is exceedingly obliging in you to carry your guardianship so far as even to interpret what I would say. Meanwhile, you have made a remark which claims my attention. You said that I was a Prince in my majority?"
"Certainly, your highness, you are a major in so far as the laws of the electoral house of Brandenburg allow the Electoral Prince, in case of his father's death, if he has attained his sixteenth year, to assume the reins of government, independent of governor or regent."
"Consequently, if my father were to die (which God forbid!) I might administer the government independently, in my own right?"
"Independently and in your own right, your highness."
"Whence comes it then that I, who might undertake the government of a whole country, am yet perpetually under restraint in the conduct of my own private life, watched over and treated like an irresponsible boy? It grieves me, Herr von Leuchtmar, to be forced to remind you that the time for my education is past, for I am not sixteen years old, but already several weeks advanced in my eighteenth year."
"I thank your highness for this admonition," replied the baron quietly, "and I confess that without it I should not have known that your education was finished."
"Sir, you insult me! So you still regard me as nothing but a boy?"
"No, your highness, as a man, and I believe that Socrates was right when he said, 'The education of man begins in the cradle and ends only in the grave.'"
"You know very well that he meant it in a widely different sense. Our talk is not now of actual education, but of the relations of pupil and teacher. The time of my pupilage is past, Sir Baron, and you will bear in mind, I beg, that I no longer sit in the schoolroom."
"That, again, I did not know," said Leuchtmar gently, "and again in my defense I cite the wise Socrates, who said, 'Man is learning his whole life long, to confess at last that the only certain knowledge he has attained is that he knows nothing.'"
"Maxims and maxims forever!" cried the Prince impatiently. "You want to evade me—you purposely misunderstand me. Well, then, candidly speaking, I am sick and tired of being everlastingly found fault with, watched over, tutored and spied upon, and once for all I beg that a stop be put to all this."
"Will your highness do me the favor to say who it is that finds fault with, watches over, tutors, and spies upon you?"
"Why, yes—you, Baron Kalkhun von Leuchtmar, you and the private secretary
Müller, you two first and foremost do those very things."
"Your highness, if we have allowed ourselves to find fault with you when you did not deserve it, it was very presumptuous; if we have watched over you and tutored you, surely that might be forgiven in former tutors and instructors; but if we have acted as spies upon you, then have we both degraded ourselves and become contemptible, and your highness may esteem it as my last tutoring if I advise you to remove so unworthy a couple of subjects forever from your presence."
"You will lead me ad absurdum, Leuchtmar!" cried the Prince. "You would prove to me that I am wrong and accuse you falsely. But you are mistaken, sir; I only speak the truth. One thing I ask you, though: have you ever looked upon me as an ungrateful pupil, a disobedient scholar, an ill-natured, idle man?"
"No, never," returned Leuchtmar cordially. "No, your highness—"
"Leave off those tiresome titles," interrupted the Prince. "Speak simply and to the point, without ceremony, as is becoming in serious moments, when man stands face to face with man."
"Well then, no. You have ever been only a source of delight to your teachers and preceptors, and have ever proved yourself a kind-hearted, friendly, and condescending young Prince. You have (forgive me for saying so) been indeed the model of a young, amiable, good, and intellectual Prince. You have completed your studies at the universities of Arnheim and Leyden to the highest satisfaction of your professors. You have distinguished yourself at the colleges by diligence and attention, and perfected yourself in the languages and mastered all the sciences. Since you have been here at The Hague you have won for yourself the love and admiration of all those who have had the good fortune to come into your presence—"
"Leuchtmar," interrupted the Prince, with difficulty suppressing a smile—"Leuchtmar, now you are falling into the opposite error; before you blamed me too much, now you praise me too much!"
"Prince, I spoke before as now, only according to my inmost convictions, and you permit me still to utter these, do you not?"
"Well," said Frederick William, hesitating, "the thing is—if your convictions are too flattering or too injurious, you might moderate them a little. For example, the way you acted in my sleeping room, a little while ago, was injurious. Just acknowledge it—say that you went a little too far, that it was not becoming in you to find fault with me, because I sat up a few hours too late, and all is made up."
"Prince," replied Leuchtmar, after a slight pause—"Prince, forgive me, but I can not say it, for it would be an untruth. For a Prince, want of punctuality is a very dangerous and bad fault, and if he first becomes unreliable in his outer being, he will be so soon in his inner nature as well. But I do admit that perhaps I spoke in too excited a tone of voice, and the reason of that was, because—"
"Well? Be pleased to finish your sentence. Because—"
"Because, yes, let it be spoken plainly, because I know what this keeping of late hours means."
"And what does it mean, if I may ask?"
"Prince, my dear, beloved Prince, you whom in the depths of my soul I call my son, Prince, forgive me if I answer. It means that you have fallen into bad company—company which it is beneath your dignity to keep, company alike prejudicial to your mind and honor as to your health."
"Of what company do you dare to speak so?" asked the Prince, with wrathful voice.
"Prince, of that company which is hypocritical and deceitful as sin, dazzling and alluring as a poisonous flower, dangerous and deadly as Scylla and Charybdis, of the company of the Media Nocte."
The Prince laughed aloud, and at the same time drew a deep breath, as if he felt his breast relieved of an oppressive burden. "Ah," he said, "is it only this? The Media Nocte is indeed a society which appears to all those who do not belong to it as a monster, a dragon, which slays with its fiery breath those who approach it, and daily requires for its breakfast a youth or a maiden. But I tell you, you anxious and short-sighted fools, you take an eagle for a flying dragon, and scream fire merely because you see a bright light! The Media Nocte is no monster, no Scylla and Charybdis, and we need not on her account have our arms bound, as cunning Ulysses did, which, by the way, always seemed to me very weak and womanly. A man must go to meet danger with a bold eye, with valiant spirit; he must confront it with his freedom of will and strength, and not seek to defend himself from it by outward means of resistance. Supposing that the Media Nocte were the dangerous society which you erroneously imagine it to be, need this be a ground for me to intrench myself timidly against it and flee its touch? No; just for that very reason would I seek it out—advance to meet it with the determination to do battle with it. But I tell you that you are mistaken in your premises! The Media Nocte is a society devoted to noble pleasures, to pure joys, to the highest, most intellectual enjoyments. All the arts, all the sciences, are fostered by it. All that is great and good, exalted and beautiful, is hailed there with delight, and only pedantry and stupidity are held aloof. Truth and nature are the two sacred laws observed in this society, and the noble, pure, free, and chaste Grecian spirit is the great exemplar of all its members. Therefore they all appear in Greek robes, and all their banquets are solemnized in the Greek style. And this it is which you wise, pedantic people stigmatize as blameworthy and abominable. The unusual fills you with horror, and the genial you call bold because it soars above what is commonplace!"
"Well do I know that your highness looks upon the society in this way," replied Leuchtmar, regarding with loving glances the handsome, excited countenance of the Prince. "Yes, I know that this is the only view you have had of the society of the Media Nocte, and that you would turn from it with horror and disgust if you were conscious of the license lurking behind its apparent geniality, the coarseness behind the unusual. But I beseech you, Prince, be not blind with your eyes open, close not voluntarily the avenues to light. I swear to you as an honest and a truthful man, that this society is like a plague spot for the noble youth of The Hague. Each one who touches it becomes impregnated with its poison, and sickens in spirit and imagination, and the fearful poison flows into his mind and heart, driving out from them forever truth and freshness, youth and innocence! Had I a son who belonged to this society with full understanding and appreciation of its meaning, I should mourn and lament him as one lost; had I a daughter, and had she even once voluntarily attended a meeting of the Media Nocte and participated in its pleasures, then should I thrust her from me with aversion and disgust—should no longer recognize her as my daughter, but forever expel her from my house in shame and disgust, for—"
"Desist!" cried the Prince, with thundering voice, springing toward Leuchtmar and grasping his shoulders with both hands. Glaring fiercely upon him, he repeated, "Desist, I tell you, Leuchtmar, desist, and recall what you have just said, for it is a libel, a slander!"
"No, it is the truth, Prince!" cried Leuchtmar, emphatically. "The Media Nocte is a society of the honorless and shameless, and the woman who belongs to it is no longer pure!"
"No further, man, or I shall kill you!" said the Prince, in a high-pitched voice stifled by rage, while his arms clutched Leuchtmar's shoulders yet more firmly. "Only hear this: You know and have long guessed that I love the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine. Well, now, the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine belongs to the society of the Media Nocte!"
"I knew that, Prince," said Leuchtmar solemnly.
The Prince gave a scream of rage, and a deadly pallor overspread his cheeks. He still retained his grasp upon Leuchtmar's shoulders, his flashing eyes penetrated like dagger points Leuchtmar's countenance, and on his brow stood great drops of sweat, which gave witness of his inward tortures.
"You knew that," he said, with gasping breath and gnashing teeth—"you knew that, and yet you dare to speak so, dare to vilify the maiden whom I love, dare to asperse a pure angel, to call her an outcast! Take back your words, man, if your life is dear to you—recall them, if you would leave this room alive!"
"Kill me, Prince, for I do not recall them!" cried Leuchtmar, tranquilly meeting the flaming glances of the Prince. "No, I do not recall them, and if you take away my life, I shall give it up in your service and for your profit. You see very well I attempt no defense, although I am a strong man, who knows well how to defend his life. But for my own convictions and for you I die gladly. Kill me then!"
"You do not recall them?" shrieked the Prince. "You maintain all to be truth that you have said of the order of the Media Nocte? You knew already before I told you that the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine belongs to it?"
"I knew it, Prince, indeed, I knew it!"
The Prince burst into a wild laugh, and with a sudden jerk thrust
Leuchtmar so violently from him that he reeled backward against the wall.
"No," he said grimly and wrathfully—"no, I will not do you the pleasure to kill you, for that would turn a wretched farce into a tragedy, and make a hero of a comedian! You are a good comedian, and you have played your part well! I can testify to that. Go and claim credit for this with my father and Count Schwarzenberg!"
"I do not understand you, Prince. What does this mean?"
"It means, Mr. Comedian, it means, that already this morning, while you supposed I was sleeping, I have had an interview with Gabriel Nietzel, my mother's court painter. Ah! now start back and be amazed. Yes, Gabriel Nietzel sat by my bed for more than an hour, and brought me a verbal message from my mother. She had also intrusted him with a letter for me, but on his journey here he has been robbed and the letter taken from him. Oh, I imagine the robbers took much more interest in the letters than in the effects of the painter, and Count Schwarzenberg and yourself both well know their contents. But happily my mother gave good Gabriel Nietzel a message to bring by word of mouth as well, which they could not steal from him, Baron von Leuchtmar. Can you understand now why I call you a comedian, who has studied his part well?"
"No, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, I can not yet."
"Well, sir, then I shall tell you. Your virtuous indignation against the Media Nocte, your shameful allegations against a Princess, whom I love, your injurious accusations and slanders—all that was nothing more than a well-studied role prepared for you by my father and his minister. Oh, answer me not, do not deny it. I know what I say. Yes, I know that the Emperor of Germany deigns to interest himself in the marriage of the little Electoral Prince of Brandenburg. I know that his condescension goes so far as to desire to bless me with the hand of an Austrian archduchess. I know that on this account he has given strict orders and injunctions to his devoted servant, who is my father's all-powerful minister, that I shall be summoned away from The Hague; not, indeed, to reside at my father's court, but to proceed to the imperial court. But, God be thanked, the walls of the palace of Berlin are not o'er thick, and my mother has quick ears and Gabriel Nietzel is a trusty messenger. Yes, sir, I know you and your plans. I know, too, that the Emperor dreads my union with the Princess Ludovicka; that he has had my father notified that he will never sanction such a union, and that therefore my father and his Catholic minister have dispatched hither messengers and envoys, with strict orders never to suffer a matrimonial alliance with the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, but to do everything to prevent it. Everything to prevent it! Do you understand me, sir? To calumniate also, and accuse and defame. But all together you shall not succeed. I shall prove to the Emperor, the Elector and his minister that I do not fear their wrath, and that the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg will never, never be the vassal and servant of the German Emperor; that he feels himself to be an independent man, who claims for himself freedom of will and action, and who will only wed in obedience to the dictates of his own heart and his own will. But you, Leuchtmar, I herewith bid you farewell! We part to-day, and forever. That we so part, believe me, is to me a lifelong pain, for never can I forget what I owe you, and how faithful you have otherwise been to me. Leuchtmar, it is dreadful that you have turned against me. Go, we have parted! Go! And when you get home to Berlin, then say to my father's Austrian minister, that I shall never forgive him for what he has this day done to me, and that the Elector Frederick William will avenge the Electoral Prince. Tell him that I shall never accept an Austrian archduchess, a Catholic, as my wife—never become the humble slave of the Emperor of Germany. This is my farewell!"
And with flaming countenance and eyes flashing with energy and passion, the Prince crossed the apartment, violently pulled open the door, and strode out. Leuchtmar looked after him with a mixture of tenderness and grief. "How angry he was, and yet how glorious to look upon!" he said softly to himself. "A young hero, who one day will perform his vow. He will not bow down as the vassal of the German Emperor!"
A side door was just now easily and cautiously opened, and an older man of venerable aspect, in simple court garb, timidly entered, looking carefully around, as if he dreaded finding some one else in the apartment.
"Baron, for heaven's sake, what has happened here?" he asked anxiously. "The Electoral Prince has been talking so loudly and so angrily that they heard him all through the house, and now he has stormed out and shouted to have his horse saddled. Almighty God! what has happened?"
Baron Leuchtmar laid his hand upon his friend's arm, and nodded kindly to him. "My dear Müller," he said, with a faint smile, "nothing more has happened than that the Electoral Prince has just dismissed me in anger, and sent me home to Berlin."
"For pity's sake, what is that you say?" asked the private secretary, clasping his trembling hands together in painful astonishment. "He has been so ungrateful as to thrust from him his best and truest friend?"
"I tell you yes, my dear Müller, he has done so, and in wrath. You know well that hastiness of temper is an heirloom of the Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured to criticise her."
"It is actually true, then, that he loves her? He has allowed himself to be enticed by the siren! Ah! she is the genuine grandchild of Mary Stuart, and knows how to charm."
"Hush, Müller, hush! If the Electoral Prince hears that, he will send you to the devil too!"
"He may do so," cried the old gentleman indignantly. "If he drives you away, his tutor and his best friend, then I shall reckon it an honor to be sent away likewise."
"Well, well my friend, be not so desperate. We know our dear Electoral Prince. He is a lion when angry, a child when his anger is appeased. Let us wait; to-day I shall conceal myself from him, and to-morrow, well, to-morrow he will call for me himself. But did you not say that he had given orders for his horse to be saddled?"
"Yes, indeed, I heard it myself how he commanded them in angry voice to saddle Maurus for him—the wild hunter, you know."
"Where can he be going so early in the morning?" asked Leuchtmar thoughtfully. "He is so much excited, and love of the Princess will lead him to some rash, ill-advised step; for you are right, friend, she is a siren! But hark! Is not that the voice of the Electoral Prince?"
"Yes, it is indeed. He is below in the court!"
The two men hastened through the apartment to one of the windows, and, hiding themselves behind the curtains, looked cautiously down into the court. The Electoral Prince had just swung himself into the saddle. The horse gave a loud neigh, as if recognizing its master, then reared, but the Prince sat firm. His short, furred mantle was lifted high by the wind, the long white ostrich plumes nodded above his broad-brimmed, gold-laced hat, beneath which floated like a lion's mane his brown and curly hair. With firm, energetic hand the youth compelled the animal to stand, then pressed his knees into its flanks, and swift as an arrow from the bow the animal flew out of the court gate. Both gentlemen stepped back from the window.
"He is a splendid young man," sighed the private secretary Müller, shaking his head.
"Yes," echoed Leuchtmar, smiling, "I find it very comprehensible that the Princess Ludovicka should gladly have him as consort. But we must not submit to it, but do everything to prevent it, for it is contrary to policy and reasons of state. And I think, too, such an union would not be for the Prince's welfare, for the Princess—But hush! the Electoral Prince has forbidden me to speak evil of her, and we are here in his room. Let us keep silence with regard to her."
"But where can he be rushing to now—the Electoral Prince, I mean?"
"I fear that I can guess. To her, to the Princess, and to apologize to her with his looks for the injury which my words have done her. He is just an enthusiastic youth, and it is his first love! Believe me, he is hurrying to her!"