I promised, with a laugh, not to anticipate troubles. He smiled at my phrase, but did not dispute its justice. I think he shared the sort of regret which I felt, that such things should be so much as talked about in connection with Elsa. A man keeps that feeling about his daughter long after her mother has marked a husband and chosen a priest.
My visit to my cousins was the last stage of my journey. From their house Vohrenlorf and I travelled through to Forstadt. I was received at the railway station by a large and distinguished company. My mother was at Artenberg, where I was to join her that evening, but Hammerfeldt awaited me, and some of the gentlemen attached to the Court. I was too much given to introspection and self-appraisement not to be aware that my experiences had given me a lift toward manhood; my shyness was smothered, though not killed, by a kind of mechanical ease born of practice. After greeting Hammerfeldt I received the welcome of the company with a composed courtesy of which the Prince's approval was very manifest. Ceremonial occasions such as these are worthy of record and meditation only when they surround, and, as it were, frame some incident really material. Such an incident occurred now. My inner mind was still full of my sojourn with the Bartensteins, of the pathetic, whimsical, hypothetical connection between little Elsa and myself, and of the chains that seemed to bind my life in bonds not of my making. These reflections went on in an undercurrent while I was bowing, saluting, grasping hands, listening and responding to appropriate observations. Suddenly I found the Count von Sempach before me. His name brought back my mind in an instant from its wanderings. The Countess was recalled very vividly to my recollection; I asked after her; Sempach, much gratified, pointed to a row of ladies who (the occasion being official) stood somewhat in the background. There she was, now in the maturity of her remarkable beauty, seeming to me the embodiment of perfect accomplishment. I saluted her with marked graciousness; fifty heads turned instantly from me toward her. She blushed very slightly and curtseyed very low. Sempach murmured gratification; Hammerfeldt smiled. I was vaguely conscious of a subdued sensation running all through the company, but my mind was occupied with the contrast between this finished woman and the little girl I had left behind. From feeling old, too old, sad, and knowing for poor little Elsa, I was suddenly transported into an oppressive consciousness of youth and rawness. Involuntarily I drew myself up to my full height and assumed the best air of dignity that was at my command. So posed, I crossed the station to my carriage between Hammerfeldt and Vohrenlorf.
"Your time has not been wasted," old Hammerfeldt whispered to me. "You are ready now to take up what I am more than ready to lay down."
I started slightly; I had for the moment forgotten that the Council of Regency was now discharged of its office, and that I was to assume the full burden of my responsibilities. I had looked forward to this time with eagerness and ambition. But a man's emotions at a given moment are very seldom what he has expected them to be. Some foreign thought intrudes and predominates; something accidental supplants what has seemed so appropriate and certain. While I travelled down to Artenberg that evening, with Vohrenlorf opposite to me (Vohrenlorf who himself was about to lay down his functions), the assumption of full power was not what occupied my mind. I was engrossed with thoughts of Elsa, with fancies about my Countess, with strange dim speculations that touched me—the young man, not the king about whom all the coil was. Had I been called upon to condense those vague meditations and emotions into a sentence, I would have borrowed what Vohrenlorf had said to me when we were with the Bartensteins. He did not often hit the nail exactly on the head, but just now I could give no better summary of all I felt than his soberly optimistic reminder: "Ah, well, even if it should be so, you have six years!"
The thought that I treasured on the way to Artenberg that evening was the thought of my six years.
CHAPTER IX.
JUST WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.
Soon after my return my mother and I went into residence at Forstadt. My time was divided between mastering my public duties under Hammerfeldt's tuition, and playing a prominent part in the gaieties of the capital. Just now I was on cordial, if not exactly intimate, terms with the Princess. She appeared to have resigned herself to Hammerfeldt's preponderating influence in political affairs, and to accept in compensation the office of mentor and guide in all social matters. I was happy in the establishment of a modus vivendi which left me tolerably free from the harassing trifles of ceremonial and etiquette. To Hammerfeldt's instructions I listened with avidity and showed a deference which did not forbid secret criticism. He worked me hard; the truth is (and it was not then hidden either from him or from me) that his strength was failing; age had not bent, but it threatened to break him; the time was short in which he could hope to be by my side, binding his principles and rivetting his methods on me. He was too shrewd not to detect in me a curiosity of intellect that only the strongest and deepest prepossessions could restrain; these it was his untiring effort to create in my mind and to buttress till they were impregnable. To some extent he attained his object, but his success was limited; and his teaching affected by what I can only call a modernness of temperament in me, which no force of tradition wholly destroyed or stifled. That many things must be treated as beyond question was the fruit of his maxims; it is a position which I have never been able to adopt; with me the acid of doubt bit into every axiom. I took pleasure in the society and arguments of the liberal politicians and journalists who began to frequent the court as soon as a rumour of my inclinations spread. I became the centre and object of a contention between the Right and the Left, between Conservative and Liberal forces—or, if I apply to each party the nickname accorded to it by the enemy, between the Reaction and the Revolution.
Doubtless all this will find an accomplished, and possibly an impartial, historian. Its significance for these personal memoirs is due chiefly to the accidental fact that, whereas my mother was the social centre of the orthodox party and in that capacity gave solid aid to Hammerfeldt, the unorthodox gathered round the Countess von Sempach. Her husband was considered no more than a good soldier, a man of high rank, and a devoted husband; by her own talents and charm this remarkable woman, although a foreigner, had achieved for herself a position of great influence. She renewed the glories of the political salon in Forstadt; but she never talked politics. Eminent men discussed deep secrets with one another in her rooms. She was content to please their taste without straining their intellects or seeking to rival them in argument. By the abdication of a doubtful claim she reigned absolute in her own dominion. It was from studying her that I first learned both how far-reaching is the inspiration of a woman's personality, and how it gathers and conserves strength by remaining within its own boundaries and refusing alien conquests. The men of the Princess's party, from Hammerfeldt downward, were sometimes impatient of her suggestions and attempted control; the Countess's friends were never aware that they received suggestions, and imagined themselves to exercise control. I think that the old Prince was almost alone in penetrating the secret of the real power his charming enemy exercised and the extent of it. They were very cordial to one another.
"Madame," he said to her once, "you might convince me of anything if I were not too old."