3
The ordinary court-life continued; the empress' first drawing-room took place. The reception-rooms leading to the great presence-chamber were lit up, though it was day-time; the ladies entered, handed their cards to the grand chamberlain, signed their names and waited until their titles were called out by the masters of ceremonies. They stood in low-necked dresses; the long white veils fell in misty folds of gauze from the feathers and jewelled tiaras. It was the first display of the new costumes of the season, the fashion which had sprung into life and now moved and had its being; but the crowded rooms seemed but the antechambers of that display and the upgathered trains gave an impression of preparation for the solemn second, the momentary appearance before her majesty.
The Duchess of Yemena was waiting, her train also thrown over her arm, with the two marchionesses her stepdaughters, whom she was about to present to the empress, when she saw Dutri, bowing, apologizing, twisting through the expectant ladies, to make way for himself through the crowded room:
"Dutri," she beckoned, as he did not seem to perceive her.
He reached her after some difficulty, bowed, paid his compliments to the little marchionesses. They stood with stiff little faces, frightened, round eyes and tight-closed mouths; and the lines of their girlish figures displayed the shyness of novices. With an awkward grace, they kept arranging their heavy court-trains over their arms. They just smiled at Dutri's words; then they looked stiff again, compared the other ladies' dresses with their own.
"Dutri," whispered the duchess, "how is the prince?"
"Just the same," the equerry whispered in reply. "Terribly melancholy...."
"Dutri," she murmured, sinking her voice still lower, "would there be no chance for me to see him?"
Dutri started in dismay:
"How do you mean, Alexa? When?"
"Presently, after the drawing-room...."
"But that is impossible, Alexa! The prince sees no one but their majesties and the princess; he talks to nobody, not even to his chamberlains, not even to us...."
"Dutri," she insisted, with her hand on his arm, "do your best. Help me. Ask for an interview for me. If you help me ... I will help you too...."
He looked at her expectantly.
"What do you think of Hélène?" she asked.
"I think Eleonore prettier," he smiled.
"Well, come to us oftener, to my special days; we never see anything of you. I will prepare the duke...."
She dangled the rich match before his eyes: he blinked them, as he continued to look at her and smile.
"But then you must help me!" she continued, with a gentle threat.
"I will do my best, Alexa, but I can promise nothing," he just had time to reply. "Wait for me after the drawing-room, in one of the other rooms," he whispered, accompanying her for a few steps.
All this time the titles were being cried, ceremoniously, slowly; the ladies moved on, dropped their trains, blossomed out.
"Her excellency the Duchess of Yemena, Countess of Vaza; their excellencies the Marchionesses of Yemena...."
The duchess moved on, the girls followed her, crimson, with beating hearts. They passed through a long gallery, dropping their trains; at the door of the presence-room, before they entered, stood flunkeys who spread out the heavy court-mantles.
"Her excellency the Duchess of ..."
The titles rang out for the second time, this time through the presence-chamber and with a sound of greater reverence, because they echoed in the listening ears of welcoming majesty.
The duchess and the marchionesses entered. Between the wide hangings of dark-blue velvet, on which glittered the cross of St. Ladislas, and under the canopy supported by gilt pillars, sat the empress, like an idol, glittering in the shadow in her watered-silver brocade, the ermine imperial mantle falling in heavy folds to her feet, a small diadem sparkling upon her head. To the right of the throne, on a low stool, sat the Princess Thera, on the left stood the mistress of the robes, the Countess of Threma; round about, on either side, a crowd of ladies-in-waiting, court-officials, equerries, maids of honour, grooms of the bed-chamber....
The duchess made her curtsey, approached the throne and with great reverence, as though with diffident lips, touched the jewelled finger-tips, which the empress held out like a live relic. Then the duchess took two steps backwards; the marchionesses, one after the other, followed her example, surprising everybody by the attractive freshness of their first court-movements, in which the touch of awkwardness became a charm. Then the bows, in a long ritual of withdrawal, backwards. They disappeared through other doors, found themselves in a long gallery, entered other reception-rooms, where people stood waiting for their carriages. And the two girls looked at each other, seeking each other's impressions, still crimson with the excitement in their vain little hearts and strangely surprised at the incomprehensible briefness of this first and all-important moment of their lives as grown-up people, as ladies accompanying their mamma to the Imperial, where they would thenceforth lead their existence. For how many months beforehand they had thought and dreamed of this moment; now, suddenly, with surprising quickness, it was over....
The duchess chucked Hélène under the chin, put Eleonore's veil straight, said that they had curtseyed beautifully, that she had herself even noticed how pleased the Countess of Threma had been with them. Then she chatted busily with the other ladies, introduced the little marchionesses, promised visits. Then she turned to a flunkey:
"Go and see where my carriage is and tell it to leave the rank and drive up last. Here...."
She gave him a gold coin; the flunkey disappeared. A nervous impatience seized the duchess; she looked out anxiously for Dutri. At last her eyes caught sight of him; he came up with his fatuous fussiness:
"Alexa, it's impossible...."
"Have you asked the prince?"
"No, not yet; there's the question, to begin with, whether he'll see me. But then ... how am I to take you to him? There are always servants hanging about in the doorways, to say nothing of the guards and halberdiers; in the anterooms you run up against a chamberlain at any moment. Really, it is impossible."
She grew angry:
"Begin by asking him. We'll see later how we're to get to him."
Dutri made graceful gestures of despair:
"But, Alexa, can't you really understand ... that it is impossible?..."
She made no reply, not wishing to reflect, her head filled with her stubborn fixed idea to see the prince, to insist on seeing him. And, suddenly, turning to him:
"Very well, if you don't care to do anything for me, you needn't think I shall help you in any way."
Her nervous, angry voice sounded louder than her first whispered words: the two girls heard her.
"Alexa," he besought her, gently.
"No, no," she resisted, curtly.
He thought of his debts and of Eleonore:
"I'll try," he whispered, in despair.
She promptly rewarded him with a smile; he went, hurried away again, with his eternal air of fussy importance, because of his young imperial master, who was so sadly ill. In the anteroom he found the chamberlain on duty:
"Would the prince be willing to see me?"
The chamberlain shrugged his shoulders:
"I'll ask," he said.
He speedily returned: the prince had sent word that Dutri could come in.
Dutri entered. Othomar lay on a couch covered with tiger-skins, in front of his writing-table. He had grown thinner; his eyes were hollow, his complexion was wan; his neck protruded frail and wasted from the loose turn-down collar of his silk shirt, over which he wore a velvet jacket. In his hand he held an open book. Djalo, the collie, lay on the floor.
Dutri the voluble began to press his request in rapid sentences following close upon one another's heels....
"The duchess?" repeated Othomar, faintly. "No, no...."
Dutri galloped on, simulated melancholy, employed words of gentle, insinuating sadness. Othomar's face assumed an expression which was strange to it and quite new: it was as though the melancholy of his features were crystallizing into a stubborn obstinacy, a silent doggedness.
"No," he said once more, while his voice, too, sounded dogged and obstinate. "Make my apologies to the duchess, Dutri. And where ... where would she wish to see me?"
"I did not fail to point out this difficulty to her excellency; but perhaps, if your highness would be so gracious ... one might nevertheless...."
Othomar closed his eyes and threw his head back; his hand fell loosely upon the collie's head. He made no further reply and his lips were tightly compressed.
Dutri still hesitated: what could he do, what should he tell Alexa?...
But the door opened and the empress entered. The drawing-room was over; she had put off her robes and the crown, but she still wore her stiff, heavy dress of silver brocade. She looked coldly at Dutri and bowed her head slightly, as a sign for him to go: the equerry beat a confused retreat, without his usual tact.
Othomar half-rose from his couch:
"Mamma!..."
She sat down beside him, stroked his forehead with her hand:
"How do you feel?"
He smiled and blinked with his eyes, without replying.
"What was Dutri doing here?"
"He wanted ... Oh, mamma, never mind, don't ask me!... How beautiful you look! May I, too, kiss your hand?"
Winningly, jestingly he took her hand and kissed it. She took his book from his fingers, read the treasonable title:
"Are you reading again, Othomar?... You know you mustn't read so much. And why all these strange books?..."
On the table lay Lassalle, Marx, works by Russian nihilists, a pamphlet by Bakounine, pamphlets by Zanti.... The little work which he was reading was by a well-known Liparian anarchist and entitled, Injustice by the Grace of God; it overthrew everything: religion and the state; it addressed itself directly to the crowned tyrants in power; it addressed itself directly to Oscar.
"Is it to get back your health, Othomar, that you read this sort of thing?" she asked, in a tone of pained reproach.
"But, mamma, I must see what it is that they want...."
"And what do they want?"
He looked pensively before him:
"I don't know what they want, I can't understand them. They employ very long sentences, the same sentences over and over again, with the same words over and over again. I can just make out that they disapprove of everything that exists and want something different. But yet sometimes...."
"Sometimes what?"
"Sometimes they say terrible things, terrible because they sound so true, mamma. When they speak of God and prove that He does not exist, when they describe our whole system of government as a monstrosity and reject all authority, including our own.... They sometimes speak like children who have suddenly learnt to talk and to judge; and then sometimes they suddenly speak clearly; and then very primitive thoughts arise in me: if God exists, why is there any injustice and misery; and our authority: on what right is that founded? O God, mamma, what right have we to reign over others, over millions? Tell me—but argue from the beginning: don't argue backwards; don't begin with us: begin with our first rulers, our usurpers—what right had they? And does ours merely spring from theirs? Oh, these problems, these simple problems: who can solve them, my God, who can solve them?..."
Elizabeth suddenly turned pale. She stared at him as though he had gone mad:
"Who gives you these books?" she asked, harshly, hoarsely, anxiously.
"Dutri, Leoni; Andro has also fetched me some."
"They're mad!" exclaimed the empress, rising. "Why do you ask for them?"
"I want to know, mamma...."
"Othomar," she cried, "will you do what I ask?"
"Yes, mamma," he replied, gently, "but sit down again and ... and don't be angry. And ... and don't say 'Othomar.' And ... and go and change your dress: oh, I can't see you in that dress; you are so far from me; your voice doesn't reach me and I daren't kiss you: you are not my mother, you are the empress! Mamma, O mamma!..."
His voice appealed to her. A powerful emotion awoke in her.
"O my boy!" she cried, with a half-sob breaking in her throat.
"Yes, yes, call me that.... Mamma, let's be quick and find each other again, let us not lose each other. What is your request?"
"Give me all those books."
"I will give them to you; they make me no happier, when all is said!"
"But then why are you unhappy, my boy, my boy?"
"Mamma, look at the world, look at our people, see how they suffer, see how they are oppressed! What shall I ever be able to do for them! I shall always be powerless, in spite of all our power! Oh, it grows so dark in front of me, I can see nothing more, I have no hope; only Utopians have any hope left, but I ... I no longer hope, for I can do nothing, nothing!... O my God, mamma, the whole country is falling upon me and crushing me and I can do nothing, nothing!... I shall have to reign and I shall not be able to, mamma. What am I? A poor sickly boy: how can I become emperor? I don't know why it is, mamma, nor what it comes from, but I don't feel like a future emperor, I feel like a feeble child! I feel like your child, your boy, and nothing more...."
He seemed about to throw himself into her arms, but on the contrary he flung himself backwards, as though he were frightened by her brilliant attire; his head dropped nervelessly on his chest, his arms fell loosely down. She saw his movement: her first feeling was one of regret that she had come to him in court-dress, longing as she did to see him, not allowing herself the time to change. But this regret passed through her as a transient emotion, for it was followed by an intense dizziness, as though a yawning abyss opened at her feet, as though the earth retreated and black nothingness gaped before her. A despair as of utter impotence enveloped her soul. Vaguely she stretched out her arms and threw them round his neck, as though she were groping in the dark, with wandering eyes:
"My boy, don't talk like that any more, because ... when you talk like that, you take away my strength too!" she whispered, in alarm. "For how can it be helped? You must, we all must...."
"Forgive me, mamma, but I ... I shall not be able to. Oh, I see it clearly now! I am not excited, I am calm. I see it, I prophesy it, it can never be...."
"But papa is still so young and so strong, my boy; and, when you grow older...."
"The older I grow, the more impossible it will be, mamma. I was always frightened of it as a child, but I never realized it so desperately as now. No, mamma, it cannot be. Now that I am ill, I have plenty of time to reflect; and I now see before me what the end of all our trouble is bound to be...."
His eyes gazed at the floor in despair; she still half-clung to him, helplessly; a menacing shiver seemed to float through the room.
"Mamma...."
She made no response.
"I must tell you of my resolve...."
"What resolve?..."
"Will you tell it to papa?"
"What, what, Othomar ... my boy?"
"That I can't marry ... Valérie, because...."
"Later, later: you needn't marry yet...."
"No, mamma, I never can, because I...."
She looked at him beseechingly, enquiringly.
"Because I want to abdicate ... my rights ... in favour of ... Berengar...."
She made no reply; feebly she drooped against him, not knowing how to console and cheer him, and softly and plaintively began to sob. It was as though her soul was being flooded with anguish, slowly but persistently, until it brimmed over. She reproached herself with it all. He was her child: the future Emperor of Liparia had derived this weakness from her. And the manifestation of this agonizing mystery of heredity before her despairing eyes deprived her of all her strength, of all her courage, of all her power of acquiescence and resignation.
"Mamma," he repeated.
She sobbed on.
"Don't be so disconsolate.... Berengar will be better than I.... You'll tell papa, won't you?... Or no, never mind, if it costs you too great an effort: I'll tell him myself...."
She started up nervously from her despair:
"O my God, no! Othomar, no! Don't talk to him about it: he is so passionate, he would ... he would murder you! Promise me that you will not talk to him about it! I will tell him—O my God!—I will tell him...."
But a tremor of hope revived within her.
"But, Othomar, I ask you, why do you do this? You are ill now, but you will get better and then ... then you will think differently!"
He gazed out before him: his presentiment quivered through him; he saw his dream again: the streets of Lipara filled with crape, right up to the sky, where it veiled the sunlight. And over his features there passed again that new air of hardness, of dogged obstinacy which made him unrecognizable; he shook his head slowly from side to side, from side to side:
"No, mamma, I shall never think differently. Believe me, it will be better so."
When she saw him like that, her new hope collapsed again and she sobbed once more. Sobbing, she rose; amid her sorrow yawned a void; she was losing something: her son.
"Are you going?" he asked.
She nodded yes, sobbing.
"Do you forgive me?"
She nodded yes again. Then she gave him a smile, a smile full of despair; lacking the strength to kiss him, she went out, still sobbing.
He remained alone and rose from his couch. He stood in the middle of the room; his eyes stared at the collie:
"Why need I give her pain!" he thought.
Everything in his soul hurt him.
"Why did I go on that voyage with Herman?" he asked himself again. "It was in those first days of rest that I began to think so much. And yet Professor Barzia says, 'Rest!' ... What does he know about me? What does one person know about another?... Djalo!" he cried.
The collie ran up, wriggling, joyfully.
"Djalo, what is right? How ought the world to be? Must there be kings and emperors, Djalo, or had we better all disappear?"
The dog looked at him, wagging its tail violently; suddenly it jumped up and licked his face.
"And why, Djalo, need one man always make the other unhappy? Why need princes make their people unhappy? Will life always remain the same, for ages and ages?..."
Othomar sank into a heap on the couch; his hand fell on the dog, which licked it passionately.
"Oh!" he sobbed. "My people, my people!..."
At this moment the last carriages were driving away in the fore-court of the Imperial; the staring crowd, behind the grenadiers, peeped curiously at the pretty ladies glistening through the glass of the state-coaches. The Duchess of Yemena's carriage came last of all.