"What the devil," said he, "has nobility to do with it? You are, as I have clearly convinced myself, a very ingenious and well-informed man. Literature, science, and the arts, confer on you nobility, and render you fully qualified to appear in our circles. Adieu, Mr Leonard!—Au revoir!"
CHAPTER XXVI.
Thus my wishes were far more readily, and more early than I could have expected, fulfilled. For the first time in my life I should appear as a courtier. All the absurd stories, therefore, which I had read in romances, of cabals, quarrels, intrigues, and conspiracies, floated through my brain. According to the most received authorities among novel writers, the Prince must be surrounded and blindly led by all sorts of impostors; especially, too, the Court-Marshal must be an insipid, proud, high-born coxcomb; the Prime Minister a malicious, miserly villain; the lords in waiting gay and unprincipled libertines. Every countenance must artificially wear the most agreeable expression, while in the heart all is selfishness and deception. In society they (the courtiers) must profess to each other the most unbounded friendship and attachment. They must bend to the very earth in apparent humility, while every one endeavours to trip up his neighbour's heels in the dark, so that he may fall unpitied, and his pretended friend come into his place, which he may keep only till some one else plays off the same man[oe]uvre against him. Finally, the court ladies must be ugly, proud, revengeful; glistening with diamonds, nodding with feathers, painted up to the eyes, but withal, amorous, constantly engaged in venal intrigues, and laying snares for the unwary stranger, which he must fly from as he would from the devil.
Such was the absurd picture which, from the books I had read at college, had remained vividly on my recollection. The conversation of the Prior, indeed, might have afforded me more rational ideas; still it seemed to me that a court must be the sphere, of all others, where the Arch-Enemy of mankind exerted his pre-eminent and unresisted dominion. Hence it was not without timidity that I looked forward to my promised introduction; but an inward conviction, that here my lot in life was finally to be decided, and the veil of mystery withdrawn, drove me still onwards, so that, at the appointed hour, with a palpitating heart, but struggling as manfully as I could with my disquietude, I found myself in the outer hall of the palace.
My residence at the commercial town of Frankenburg had done much to rub off the rust of my conventual habits. Being by nature gifted with a graceful and prepossessing exterior, I soon accustomed myself to that free and unembarrassed demeanour, which is proper to the man of the world. That paleness, which generally disfigures even handsome features among the inhabitants of the cloister, had now vanished from my countenance. I was at that time of life when our mental and bodily energies are generally in their zenith. Conscious power, therefore, gave colour to my cheeks and lustre to my eyes, while my luxuriant dark hair completely concealed all remains of the tonsure. Besides all this, I wore a handsome full dress suit of black, a chef-d'[oe]uvre of Damon, which I had brought with me from Frankenburg.
Thus it was not to be wondered at that I made a favourable impression on those who were already assembled in the outer hall, and this they did not fail to prove, by their polite advances and courteous expressions. As, according to my romantic authorities, the Prince, when he revealed his rank to me in the park, should have thrown back his surtout, and discovered to my sight a brilliant star, (which he had failed to do,) so I had expected that every one whom I should meet in the palace should be clad in the richest silks and embroidery. How much was I surprised, therefore, to find that, with the exception of ribbons and orders, their dresses were all as plain as that in which I myself appeared.
By the time, therefore, that we were summoned to the audience-chamber, my prejudices and embarrassment had worn off; and the manners of the Prince himself, who came up to me, with the words, "Ha! there is Mr Leonard," completely restored my courage. His highness continued for some time in conversation with me, and seemed particularly diverted by the freedom and severity with which I had criticised his buildings in the park.
The folding doors were now opened, and the Princess, accompanied by some of her ladies, came into the room. Immediately on her appearance, as the glare of the lustres fell on her features, I recognised, more forcibly than ever, her exact likeness to the Abbess. The ladies of the assembly surrounded her for some time, but at last I was summoned, and introduced, after which ceremony her eyes followed me, with a gaze obviously betraying astonishment and inward emotion. Then turning to an old lady who stood near her, she said a few words in a whisper, at which the latter also seemed disquieted, and looked on me with a scrutinizing aspect.
All this was over in a moment, for other presentations took place; after which the assembly divided into groups, and engaged in lively conversation. One recollected, indeed, that he was in the circle of a court, and under the eye of the sovereign, yet without feeling on that account constrained or embarrassed.—I scarcely recognised a single figure that would have been in keeping with the caricatures that I had previously drawn. The Court-Marshal was a lively and happy-looking old man, without any particular attributes, either of pride or formality. The lords in waiting were sprightly youths, who, by no one symptom, betrayed that their characters were depraved and vicious. Two ladies, who immediately waited on the Princess, seemed to be sisters. They were uninteresting, insignificant, and, as luck would have it, dressed with extraordinary plainness.