5
The young archduchess did not appear at luncheon; she was asleep. Not long before dinner—it was raining and the queen was taking tea in the hall with the princesses, the aunts, the children—she appeared. She looked rather pale; her face was a little drawn, her eyes strangely wide and burning. She was wearing a simple summer costume of some soft, pale-lilac material, with two white ribbons tied round her waist; the colour went well with her strange hair, which now looked brown and then again seemed auburn. The queen held out her hand to Valérie, shook her head and said:
"You naughty girl! How you frightened us!"
Valérie kissed the queen on the forehead:
"Forgive me, aunt. The wind was so strong, I could hardly make way against it. I oughtn't to have gone. But I felt a need ... for movement."
The queen looked at her anxiously:
"How are you feeling now?"
"Oh, very well, aunt! Rather stiff; and a little headache. It's nothing. Only my hands are terribly blistered: just look...."
And she laughed.
The old aunts asked for copious details of what had happened: it was difficult to make them understand. Wanda sat down between the two of them, told them the story; their sharp cockatoo-profiles kept on wagging up and down at Wanda, in astonishment. The aunts pressed their hands to their hearts and looked at Valérie with terror in their eyes; she smiled to them pleasantly. When Countess von Altenburg appeared, the aunts took the old mistress of the household between them and in their turn told her the story, screeching it into the countess' poor old ears. King Siegfried entered; he went up to Valérie, who rose, took her head in his hands, looked at her and shook his grey head; nevertheless he smiled. Then he looked at his sisters; he was always amused at them; they were still in the middle of their story to the countess and kept on taking the words out of each other's mouths.
"Come, it was not so dreadful as all that!" said the king, interrupting them. "It's very nice to go rowing like that, once in a way, and an excellent remedy for a sick-headache. You ought to try it, Elsa, when you have one of yours."
The old princess looked at him with a sugary smile; she never knew whether her brother meant a remark of this kind or not. She shook her stately head slowly from side to side:
"No, lieber Siegfried, that is more than we can do. Unsere liebe Erzherzogin is still a young thing!..."
Othomar, Gunther and Herman entered: they had been playing billiards; the young princes followed them. Valérie gave a little shiver, rose and went up to Othomar:
"I thank you, Xara," she said. "I thank you a thousand, thousand times!"
"But what for?" replied Othomar, simply. "I did no more than row you a bit of the way back. There was no danger. For, if you had been too tired to go on rowing, you could always have jumped into the sea and swum ashore. You're a strong swimmer. You would only have lost the boat."
She looked at him:
"That's true," she said. "But I never thought of it. I was ... bewildered perhaps. I should not have done that; I had a fixed idea that I had to row back. If I hadn't been able to keep on rowing, I should certainly.... Don't refuse my thanks, I beg of you: accept them."
She put out her hand; he pressed it. He looked up at her with quiet surprise and failed to understand her. He did not doubt but that she had that morning left the castle with the intention of committing suicide. Had she felt remorse on the water, or had she not dared? Did she want to live on and did she therefore turn back? Was she so shallow that she had already recovered from the great grief which had crushed her the night before? Did she realize that life rolls with indifferent chariot-wheels over everything, whether joy or pain, that is part of ourselves and that it is best to care for nothing and also to feel nothing? What of all this applied to her? He was unable to fathom it. And once more he saw himself standing perplexed before the question of love! What was this feeling worth, if it weighed so little in a woman's heart? How much did it weigh with him for Alexa? What was it then?... Or was it something ... something quite different?
At dinner Valérie talked as usual and he continued not to understand her. It irritated him, his want of penetration of the human heart: how could he develop it? A future ruler ought to be able to see things at a glance.... And suddenly, perhaps merely because of his desire for human knowledge, the thought arose within him that she was concealing her emotions, that perhaps she was still suffering intensely, but that she was pretending and bearing up: was she not a princess of the blood? They all learnt that, they of the blood, to pretend, to bear up! It was bred in their bones. He looked at her askance, as he sat next to her: she was quietly talking across him to the queen. He did not know whether he had guessed right and he still hesitated between the two thoughts: was she bearing up, or was she shallow? But, yet he was happy at being able to hesitate about her and to refute that first suspicion of shallowness by his second thought. He was happy in this, not solely because of Valérie, that she should be better than he had thought at first; he was happy especially for the general conclusion which he was able to draw: that a person is mostly better, thinks more deeply, cherishes nobler feelings than he allows to appear in the everyday commonplaces of life, which compel him to occupy himself with momentary trifles and phrases. A delicate satisfaction took possession of him that he had thought this out so, a contentment that he had discovered something beautiful in life: a beautiful secret. Everybody knew it perhaps, but nobody let it be perceived. Oh yes, people were good; the world was good, in its essence! Only a strange mystery compelled it to seem different, a strange tyranny of the universal order of things.
He glanced around the long table. Every face wore a look of kindness and sympathy. He was attached to his uncle so calm, gentle and strong, with the seeming dogged silence of his Norse character, with his tranquil smile and now and then a little gleam of fun, aimed especially at the old aunts, but also at the children and even at the equerries, the ladies-in-waiting. He knew that his uncle was a thinker, a philosopher; he would have liked to have a long discussion with him on points of philosophy. He was fond also of his aunt, a first-rate queen: what a lot she did for her country, what a number of charities she called into existence; a first-rate mother: how sensibly she performed her difficult task, the bringing up of royal children! She was more beloved in her country than was his mother, whom yet he adored, in hers; she had more tact, less fear, less haughtiness also towards the crowd. It should perhaps have been the other way about: his mother queen here, her sister empress yonder....
And the crown-prince, with his simple manliness; Herman, with his joviality; the younger brothers, with their vigorous, boyish chaff: how fond he was of them! Sofie, Wanda, the children: how he liked them all! He even liked the aunts and the devoted old mistress of the household. Oh, the world was good, people were good! And Valérie was not indifferent, but suffered in quiet silence, as a princess of the blood must suffer, with unclouded eyes and a smile!
After dinner Queen Olga took Othomar's arm:
"Come with me for a moment," she said.
The rain had ceased; a footman opened the French windows. Behind the dining-room lay a long terrace looking upon the woods. The queen put her arm in Othomar's and began to walk up and down with him:
"And so you are going to leave us?" she asked.
He looked at her with a smile:
"You know I am, aunt; with much regret. I shall often long for Altseeborgen, for all of you. I feel so much at home in your circle. But yet I am anxious to see mamma again: it's nearly four months since I saw her last."
"And are you feeling better?"
"How could I but feel better, aunt? The voyage with Herman made me ever so much stronger; and living here with you has been a delightful after-cure. A delightful holiday."
"But your holiday will soon be over. Will you now be able to play your part again?"
He smiled, while his sad eyes expressed calm resignation:
"Certainly, aunt. Life can't be always holidays. I should think I had had my fill of them, doing nothing for six weeks except lie on the sand, or in the woods, or in that most comfortable wicker chair of Herman's!"
"Have you done nothing besides?" she said, playfully.
"How do you mean?"
"Saved Valérie's life, for instance?"
He gave a slight movement of gentle impatience: "But, aunt, I didn't really. I suppose the papers will go and say I did, but there was really no saving in the matter. Valérie knows how to swim and she was close to the shore."
"I've had a letter from papa, Othomar."
"From papa?"
"Yes.... Have you never thought of ... Valérie?"
He reflected for a second:
"Perhaps," he laughed.
"Do you feel no affection for her?"
"Certainly, aunt.... I thought papa preferred the Grand-duchess Xenia?"
The queen shrugged her shoulders:
"There's the question of her religion, you know. And papa would be just as glad of an Austrian alliance.... How do you propose to make the journey? And when do you start?"
"Ducardi and the others will be here this week. Towards the end of the week. First to Copenhagen, London, Brussels, Berlin and then to Vienna."
"And to Sigismundingen."
"Yes, Sigismundingen, if papa wishes."
"But what do you wish, Othomar?"
He looked at her gently, smiling, shrugged his shoulders:
"But, aunt, what wish have I in the matter?"
"Could you grow fond of Valérie?"
"I think so, aunt; I think she is very sweet and very capable and thorough."
"Yes, that she certainly is, Othomar! Would you not speak to her before you go?"
"Aunt...."
"Why shouldn't you?"
"Aunt, I can't do that. I am only staying a few days longer, and ..."
"Well?"
"Valérie has had a great sorrow. She cannot but still be suffering under it. Think, aunt, it was yesterday. Good God, yesterday!... And to-day she was so calm, so natural.... But it must be so, mustn't it? She must still be suffering very severely. She went on the sea this morning, in this weather: we don't know, do we, aunt, but we all think the same thing! Perhaps we are quite mistaken. Things are often different from what they seem. But, however that may be, she is certainly in distress. And so I can't ask her, now...."
"It's a pity, as you're here together. A thing of this sort is often settled at a distance. If it was arranged here, you would perhaps not need to make the journey."
"But, aunt, papa was so bent upon it!"
"That's true; but then nothing was yet decided."
"No, aunt, let me make the journey. For in any case it's impossible to arrange things here. If papa himself asked me, I should tell him ... that it was impossible."
"Papa does ask you, Othomar, in his letter to me."
He seized her hands:
"Aunt, in that case, write to him and say that it's impossible, at this moment ... oh, impossible, impossible! Let us spare her, aunt. If she becomes my wife, she will still become so while she loves another. Will that not be terrible enough for her, when it is decided months hence? Therefore let us spare her now. You feel that too, as a woman, don't you? There are no affairs of state that make it necessary for my marriage to take place in such a hurry."
"Yet papa wishes you to marry as soon as possible. He wants a grandson...."
He made no reply; a look of suffering passed over his face. The queen perceived it:
"But you're right," she replied, giving way. "It would be too cruel. Valérie, I may tell you, is bearing up wonderfully. That's how a future Empress of Liparia ought to be...."
He still made no reply and walked silently beside her; her arm lay in his; she felt his arm tremble:
"Come," she said, gently, "let us go in; walking up and down like this is fatiguing...."