Maximilian sighed, and turned his eyes once more out on to the park.
“What can I do? Men are not like the characters in your operas. I cannot control their actions, and mould their characters to suit the parts I want them to play.”
“And why should you? Do not take this man Mark too seriously. You and I have the character of idealists and dreamers, but we are sober matter-of-fact persons compared with him. I grant you his ideas are noble, but they are impossible. Trust me, after a few more interviews such as we have had to-day, he will begin to see the hopelessness of his wild schemes. I heard him call you ‘your Majesty’ twice. Build him a hospital in Mannhausen, and set him up as director; that will give him something to occupy his mind.”
“Ah, but that would not relieve me. How can I help feeling the truth there is in his words, in what he said to me yesterday? After all, he is right; I am the King, and I cannot get rid of my responsibility. I wish I could. If I could help matters by abdicating, I think I should do it. But I am afraid poor Ernest would not be much of an improvement.”
“Don’t think of that. After all, they cannot say that you are a bad king. Let these revolutionists fight their own battle, if they have the courage of their convictions. You can always look on and see fair play, and if they get put into prison you can let them out again. Why should you be expected to take all the risk, and carry out the work single-handed? Come, you must not let your mind dwell so much on this business. We have managed to get along together pretty well before this cropped up, and why should you let your whole life be upset by this fellow’s exhortations?”
Maximilian laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Do not think that I mean to let anything of this sort interfere with our friendship, Auguste. Nothing can come between you and me—you know me too well to think that. But I passed through an experience yesterday, and it has left its mark. When that man stood there, with his pistol covering me, and spoke to me as he did, I felt that I was listening to a voice which I had been trying to shut out all my life, and which at last had pierced its way into my selfish isolation. It was the voice of humanity, the voice of duty. Auguste, he was right. My people have a right to demand that I shall govern them like a king, or give up my crown. What have I ever done for Franconia? What return have I ever made to the millions who work and toil and serve me, and supply me with the sums I have lavished on my own pleasures? This talk of revolution may be idle; I fear it is. I may not be able to reorganise society, to divide the wealth of the few among the many, to change the conditions of labour, to alter the great channels in which human life has run for thousands upon thousands of years. But surely I could do something, Auguste; something not quite unworthy of my trust; something that would better the lot of these millions; something to lighten their burdens and to make their lives less like the brutes’; something that would make them look up to me and bless me, and would make me feel that my life had not been a mere waste of existence, like a river running through the desert and losing itself miserably in the barren sands.”
Auguste was deeply moved.
“My friend, you are a better man than I am. You are worthier of your crown than you think.”
The words had hardly left his lips when he saw a sharp took of mingled pain and dread start on the King’s face. He drew back hastily from the window-pane, and turned his eyes into the room.