484CHAPTER XXII
The Abbey of Mount Regret

“O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.”

–Romeo and Juliet.

It is curious and humiliating, how Nature does not vex herself in the least for the dying of a man. And yet, to the man, the event is so very important! Each breath of spaceless night, each twinkle from the firmament, though but the phantom of a ray quenched ages before, everything, he teases into anxious commentary on his own puny end. There could not be more ado if the Universe were in the throes, writhing against a reconquering Chaos. Harassed creature, what ails him is only the pathetic fallacy, which is a soothing melody and stimulating to mortal pride. But the lapses into healthier realization are very, very hard to bear.

How cold it was, when Maximilian awoke! The chill seemed creeping nearer his heart, nearer the citadel. And how black the night, before the dawn! But where, now, were his matches? He had the same monotonous trouble of any other morning in getting one to light. Then the two candles guttered fitfully, sordidly, just as they had always done. The white cloths of the last communion seemed a ghostly intrusion on what was of every day. Maximilian drew his cloak about him. The chill was simply of the plateau, of the night, not the portent of death. The world without was dark and desolate, but that had no reference to the tomb. The 485world was merely taking its normal sleep. The heavy cloak ought to answer–but, it did not.

He took up the snuffers, coaxing the yellow flames to brighter promise, then set the candles before him on the table. A piece of dripping tallow fell upon his hand, and the hand jerked back. The man pondered. So, even his flesh was part of Nature too, and heeded trivial pain, with no thought of the bullets to drive through it shortly.

He wrote two or three letters yet remaining, to friends, to his brother, the Emperor of Austria. He penned words of farewell, yet even as the tears welled in his eyes, he needed to stop and make sure that he had indeed not more than three hours yet to live. It was difficult, though, with the candles spluttering there, in the ordinary, every-day fashion. He signed the last letter, to his mother. He gazed at the signature, of characters squarely formed. He might have written it yesterday, or the year before. It looked the same. But the pen he had just dropped had dropped forever. No, no, that should not be! And he snatched it up again, and wrote, scribbled, covered paper, fearing to stop. But at last he did stop, with a shivering laugh. He must face this thing, he decided. And over and over again he told himself, “I have written my last. Yes, my last!” and steadfastly resisted the taunting, airy quill lying there. So, what was harder than farewell to loved ones, he nerved himself to end the small actions of his daily existence.

Maximilian had his life long been a dreamer, ever gazing wide-eyed as a child on the wonderful fantasies that came, whether entrancing or dreadful. But the child’s fantasies are kindred with man’s philosophies. Often, as he lay awaiting sleep, there was one particular thought that would bring him quickly, stark, staring awake. And this thought was, how certain things always came to pass. No matter how far away, nor how very slow their approach, making vague the hope or horror of them, yet the actual, present hour of their happening 486always struck at last. There was the eve of the day when he should be of age. Oh, but he had longed for that day! He had longed until he craftily suspected it never would arrive. And yet, despite those leaden-footed oxen, the minutes, arrive it did, in very fact. The eve of that day was a happy bed-time; but over his ardent reveries, over the vista of future achievements, there suddenly, darkly loomed another thought, a foretoken and clammy shroud, which smote the young prince with trembling. For would not the day of his death, however far away also, sometime be the present, passing moment, as surely, just as surely, as this anniversary of his birth? Here was a terrifying glimpse of mortality.

When, not fifteen years later, Maximilian opened his eyes in the black Capuchin cell, and comprehension grew on him of the present day’s meaning, he recalled how the fantasy of a morning of death had first come to him. He was a boy, and he was to go on a voyage. The boy had awakened when there was scarcely light as yet, and heard his mother at the door. “It is time, dear.” She spoke low, not liking to break his slumber. But in the silence of all the world her voice was clear, and very sweet, and the words stood forth against his memory ever afterward. He was to be gone from her for a time, and this was in her mind as she called him. The boy, though, could think of nothing except that his little excursion among new and strange adventures was to begin, actually to begin. But then, quite unaccountably, there fell over his eagerness a chilling gloom. The delightful sprite named Expectation, who had whispered so piquantly of this same eventful morn, had basely changed herself into a hideous vampire, and she muttered at him, in frightful, raucous tones. Yet the hag’s snarls were true promises. There was to come, surely, inexorably, a certain other eventful morn, and he would awake, and without his mother’s calling him, he would know–know–that it was time!