2
The next day the imperial family of Liparia travelled back from Sigismundingen to Lipara. The reception at the central station was most hearty; the town was covered with bunting; in the evening there were popular rejoicings. The officers of the various army-corps gave the crown-prince banquets in honour of his betrothal. The Archduchess Valérie's portraits were exposed in the windows of all the picture-shops; the papers contained long articles full of jubilation.
It was a few hours before the dinner given by the officers of the throne-guards to their imperial colonel when Othomar was, as it were suddenly, overcome by a strange sensation. He was in his writing-room, felt rather giddy and had to sit down. The giddiness was slight, but lasted a long time; for a long time the room seemed to be slowly trying to turn round him and not to succeed; and this gave a painful impression of resistance on the part of its lifeless furniture. One of Othomar's hands rested on his thigh, the other on the ruff of the collie which had laid its head upon his knee. He remained sitting, bending forward.
When the giddiness had passed, he retained a strange lightness in his head, as though something had been taken out of it. He leant back cautiously; the collie, half-asleep, dreamily opened its eyes and then dozed off again, its head upon Othomar's knee, under his hand. An irresistible fatigue crept up Othomar's limbs, as though they were sinking in soft mud. It surprised him greatly, this feeling; and, looking sideways at the clock, without moving his head, lest he should bring on the giddiness again, he calculated that he had an hour and a half before dinner. This prospective interval relieved him and he remained sitting, as though calculating his fatigue: whether it would pass, whether it would leave his body.
It lasted a long time, so long indeed that he doubted whether he would be able to go. When three-quarters of an hour had passed, he pressed the bell which stood near him on the table. Andro entered.
"Andro...." he began, without continuing.
"Does your highness wish to dress? Everything is put out...."
Othomar just patted the dog's head, as it still lay dozing motionless against his knee.
"Is your highness unwell?"
"A little giddy, Andro; it is passing off already."
"But is your highness right in going? Had I not better send for Prince Dutri?"
Othomar shook his head decidedly and rose:
"No, I'm late as it is, Andro. Come, help me with my things...."
And he entered his dressing-room.
He appeared at the dinner, but made excuses to the officers for his evident languor. He just joined in the toasts by raising his glass, with a smile. It struck them all that he looked very ill, emaciated, hollow-eyed and white as chalk in his white-and-gold uniform. Immediately after dinner he returned to the Imperial, without accompanying them to the Imperial Jockey Club, the club of the jeunesse dorée.
He slept heavily; a misty dream hovered through his night. The man who had tried to murder him at Zanti's grinned at him with clenched fists; then the scene changed to the Gothlandic sea and he rowed Valérie along, but, however hard he rowed, the three towers of the castle always drew farther away, unapproachable....
When he awoke, it was already past eight. He reflected that it was too late for his usual morning ride and remained lying where he was. He rang for Andro:
"Why didn't you wake me at seven o'clock?"
"Your highness was sleeping so soundly, I dared not; your highness was not well yesterday...."
"And so you just let me sleep? Very well.... Send word to her majesty ... that I am not well."
The man looked at him anxiously:
"What is the matter with your highness?"
"I don't know, Andro ... I am a little tired. Where's Djalo?"
"Here, highness...."
The collie ran in noisily, put its great paws on the camp-bed, wriggled its haunches wildly to and fro as it wagged its tail....
Then, suddenly, it lay down quietly beside the bed.
The empress sent back to say that she would come at once; she was not yet dressed.... With calm, open eyes Othomar lay waiting for her.
She entered at last, a little agitated with anxiety. She questioned him, but learnt nothing from his vague, smiling replies. She laid her hand on his forehead, felt his pulse and could not make up her mind whether he had any fever. There was typhoid about: she was afraid of it....
The physicians-in-ordinary were called and relieved her mind: there was no fever. The prince seemed generally tired; he had doubtless over-exerted himself lately. He must rest....
The emperor was astonished: the prince had just been resting and had stayed on for weeks at Altseeborgen. What had been the use of it then!
The rumour ran through the palace, the town, the country, through Europe, that the Duke of Xara was keeping his room because of a slight indisposition. The physicians issued a simple and very reassuring bulletin.
However, in the afternoon Othomar got up and even dressed himself, but not in uniform. He had had some lunch in his bedroom and now went to Princess Thera's apartments. She sat drawing; with her was a lady-in-waiting, the young Marchioness of Ezzera.
The princess was surprised to see her brother:
"What! Is that you? I thought you were in bed!..."
"No, I'm a little better...."
He bowed to the marchioness, who had risen and curtseyed.
"Won't you go on with the portrait?" asked Othomar.
Thera looked at him:
"You're looking so pale, poor boy. Perhaps I'd better not. It tires you so, that sitting, doesn't it?"
"Yes, sometimes, a little...."
They were now standing before the portrait; the marchioness had retired, as she always did when the brother and sister were together. The painting was half-covered with a silk cloth, which Thera pulled aside: it was already a young head full of expression, in which life began to gleam behind the black, melancholy eyes, and painted with broad, firm brushwork, with much reflection of outside light, which fell upon one side of the face and brought it into relief, throwing it forward out of the shadow in the background.
"Is it almost finished?" asked Othomar.
"Yes, but you've kept me waiting awfully long for the final touches: just think, you've been away for four months. I haven't been able to work at it all that time. But, you know ... you've changed. If only I shan't have to leave it like this. It's no longer like you...."
"It'll begin to be like me again, when I'm looking a little better!" answered Othomar.
But the princess became rather nervous; she suddenly drew the silk cloth over it again....
Othomar did not appear at dinner; he went to bed early. The next day the doctors found him very listless. He was up but not dressed; he lay in his dressing-gown on the sofa in his room, with the collie at his feet. He complained to the empress that he had such a queer feeling in his head, as though it were about to open and pour out all its contents.
For days this condition remained unchanged: a total listlessness, a total loss of appetite, a visible exhaustion.... The empress sat by his side as he lay on his sofa staring through the open windows into the green depths of the park of plane-trees. The birds chirped outside; sometimes Berengar's small, shrill voice sounded among them, as he played with a couple of his little friends. The empress read aloud, but it tired Othomar, it made his head ache....
After a long conversation between the three doctors and the emperor and empress, Professor Barzia was summoned from Altara for a consultation: the professor was a nerve-specialist of European fame.
In the emperor's room the emperor, the empress and Count Myxila sat waiting for the result of the examination and the subsequent consultation. It lasted long. They did not speak while they waited: the empress sat staring before her with her quiet expression of acquiescence; the emperor walked irritably to and fro. The old chancellor, with his stern, proud face and bald head, stood pensively near the window.
Then the doctors were announced. They appeared, Professor Barzia leading the way, the others following. The empress fancied that she read the worst on the professor's pale, rigid features; one of the physicians, however, nodded his big, kind head compassionately from behind his colleague, to reassure her.
"Well?" asked the emperor.
"We have carefully examined his imperial highness, sir," the professor began. "The prince is quite free from organic disease, though his constitution is generally delicate."
"What's wrong with him then?" asked Oscar.
"The prince's nervous system seems to us, sir, to have undergone an alarming strain."
"His nerves? But he's never nervous, he's always calm," exclaimed the emperor, stubbornly.
"All the more reason, sir, to appreciate the prince's self-restraint. His highness has evidently kept himself going for a long time; and the effort has been too much for him at last. He is calm now, as your majesty says. But his calmness does not alter the fact that his nerves are completely run down. His highness has clearly been overtaxing his strength."
"And in what way?" asked the emperor, haughtily.
"That, sir, would no doubt be better known to those at court than to me, who come fresh from my study and my hospitals. Your majesty will be able to answer that question yourself. I can only give you a few indications. His highness told me that he remembered sometimes feeling those fits of giddiness and exhaustion even before the great floods in the north. That was in March. It is now September. I imagine that his highness has been leading a very active life in the meantime?"
The emperor made movements with his eyebrows as if he could not understand: tremulous motions of his powerful head, with its fleece of silvering hair.
"The journey to the north may in fact have affected his highness, professor," the empress began.
She was sitting haughtily upright, in her plain dark dress. Her face was expressionless, her eyes were cold. She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though she were not a mother.
"His highness is very sensitive to impressions," she continued, "and he received a good many at Altara that were likely to shock him."
The professor made a slight movement of the head:
"I remember, ma'am, seeing his highness at the identification of the corpses in the fields," he said. "His highness was very much affected...."
"But to what does all this tend?" asked the emperor, still recalcitrant.
"It tends to this, sir, that his highness has presumably allowed himself no rest since that time...."
"His highness has allowed himself months of rest!" exclaimed the emperor.
"Will your majesty permit us to cast our eyes backwards for a moment? After the very fatiguing journey in the north, the prince returned straight to conditions of political excitement—Lipara was then under martial law—and afterwards came the bustle of a festival time, when the King and Queen of Syria were here...."
The emperor shrugged his shoulders.
"After that, the prince, acting on the advice of my respected colleagues, went on a sea-voyage to restore his health. No doubt his highness then enjoyed some days of rest; but the great hunting-trips in which he took part with Prince Herman were beyond a doubt too much for his highness' strength. Now, quite recently, his highness has been betrothed: this may have caused him some excitement. I am casually mentioning a few of the main facts, sir. I know nothing of the prince's inner life: if I knew something of that, it would certainly make many things much easier for me. But this is certain: his highness has from day to day led a too highly agitated existence, whatever the agitations may have been, great or small. That his highness did not collapse earlier is no doubt due to an uncommon power of self-control, of which I believe the prince himself to be unconscious, and an uncommon sense of duty, which is also quite spontaneous in his highness. These are high qualities, sir, in a future ruler...."
A faint flush dyed the empress' cheeks; a milder expression suffused the coldness of her features.
"And what is your advice, professor?" she asked.
"That his highness should take an indefinite rest, ma'am."
"His highness' marriage was fixed for next month," remarked the empress, in an enquiring tone.
Professor Barzia's face became quite white and rigid.
"It would be simply inexcusable, if his highness' marriage were to take place next month," he said, with his even, oracular voice.
"Postponed, then?" asked the emperor, with suppressed rage.
"Without doubt, sir," replied the professor, with cool determination.
"My dear professor," the emperor growled between his teeth, with a pretence of geniality, "you speak of rest and of rest and of rest. Good God, I tell you, the prince has had rest, months and months of it!... Do I ever rest so long? Life is movement; and government is movement. We can't allow ourselves to rest. Why should a young man like the prince be always resting? I never remember resting like that, when I was crown-prince! He may not be as strong as I am, but yet he is of our race! Excitement, you say! Good God, what excitement? Political excitement? That fell to my share, not the prince's! And I had no need of rest after it. And has a prince to go and rest when he gets engaged to be married? Really, professor, this is carrying hygiene beyond all limits!"
"Sir, your majesty has done me the honour to ask my opinion of the prince's condition. I have given that opinion to the best of my knowledge."
"It's rest, then?"
"Undoubtedly, sir."
"But how long do you want him to rest?"
"I am not able to fix a date, sir."
"How long do you want his marriage postponed?"
"Indefinitely, sir."
The emperor paced the room; something unusual passed over his powerful features, a look of anguish....
"That's impossible," he muttered, curtly.
All were silent.
"It's impossible," he, repeated, dully.
"Then his highness will marry, sir," said Barzia.
The emperor stood still:
"What do you mean?" he asked, gruffly.
"That nothing can prevail with your majesty in this most important matter ... except your own sense of what is right and reasonable."
The emperor's breath came in short gasps between his full, sensual lips; his veins swelled thick on his low, Roman forehead; his strong fists were clenched. No one had ever seen Oscar like this before; nor had any one ever dared so to address him....
"Explain yourself more clearly," he thundered into the professor's rigid face.
Barzia did not move a muscle:
"If his highness is married next month ... it means his death."
The empress remained sitting stiff and upright, but she turned very pale, shuddered and closed her eyes as though she felt giddy.
"His death?" echoed the emperor, in consternation.
"Or worse," rejoined Barzia.
"Worse?"
"The extinction of your majesty's posterity."
The emperor rapped out a furious oath and struck his fist on the huge writing-table. The bronze ornaments on it rang. Myxila drew a step nearer:
"Sir," he said, "there is nothing lost. If I understand Professor Barzia, his highness' illness is only temporary and is curable."
"Certainly, excellency," replied Barzia. "So long as it is not forced to become incurable and chronic."
Oscar bit his lips convulsively. His glittering eyes stood out small and cruel. It struck Myxila how much, at this moment, he resembled a portrait of Wenceslas the Cruel.
"Professor," he hissed, "we thank you. Stay at Lipara till to-morrow, so as to observe his highness once more."
"I will obey your majesty's commands," said Barzia.
He bowed, the physicians bowed; they withdrew. Left alone with the empress and the imperial chancellor, Oscar no longer restrained his rage. Like a beast foaming at the mouth, he walked fiercely up and down with heavy steps, gurgling as though the breath refused to come through his constricted throat:
"Oh!" he gnashed between his teeth, bursting out at last. "That boy, that boy!... He's not even fit to get married! His duchess: he was able to get married to her! And that boy, oh, that boy is to succeed me, me!..."
A furious laugh of contempt grated from between his large, white teeth, with biting irony.
The empress rose:
"Count Myxila," she said, trembling, "may I beg your excellency to come with me?"
She turned to leave the room. Myxila, hesitating, was already following her to the door.
"What for?" roared the emperor. "What's the reason of that? I have something more to say to Myxila."
The empress gave the emperor a look as cold as ice:
"It is my express wish, sir, that Count Myxila should go with me," she said, in the same trembling voice. "I think your majesty needs solitude. Your majesty is saying things which a father must not even think and which a sovereign must certainly not say in the presence of a subject, not even in that of one of his highest subjects...."
The emperor tried to interrupt her.
"Your majesty," continued the empress, with a haughty tremor, cutting the words from him with her icy-cold, trembling voice as though with a knife, "is saying these things of the future Emperor of Lipara ... and I wish no subject, not even Count Myxila, to hear such things; and, moreover, your majesty is saying these things of my son: therefore I do not wish to hear them myself, sir! Excellency, I request you once more to come with me."
"Go then!" shouted the emperor, like a madman. "Go, both of you: yes, leave me alone, leave me alone!"
He walked furiously up and down, flung the chairs one against the other, roared like an angry caged lion. He took a bronze statue from a bracket in front of a tall mirror that rose to the ceiling in gilt arabesques:
"There then!" he lashed out, while his passion seemed to seethe mistily in his bewildered brain, to shoot red lightning-flashes from his bloodshot eyes, to drive him mad because of his impotence against the senseless fate and logic of circumstance.
Like an athlete he brandished the heavy statue through the air; like a child he hurled it at the great mirror, which fell clattering in a flicker of shreds.
The empress and Myxila had left the room.