CHAPTER I.
GEROLSTEIN.
Prince Henry of Herkaüsen-Oldenzaal to the Count Maximilian Kaminetz.
Oldenzaal, 25th August, 1840.
I am just arrived from Gerolstein, where I have passed three months with the grand duke and his family. I expected to find a letter announcing your arrival at Oldenzaal, my dear Maximilian. Judge of my surprise—of my regret, on hearing that you will be detained in Hungary for several weeks.
For more than four months I have been unable to write to you, not knowing where to direct my letters, thanks to your original and adventurous manner of travelling. You had, however, formally promised me at Vienna that you would be at Oldenzaal the first of August; I must then give up the pleasure of seeing you, and yet I have never had greater need of pouring forth my sorrows to you, Maximilian, my oldest friend, for although we are both of us still very young, our friendship is of long standing, as it dates from our childhood.
What shall I say to you? During the last three months a complete revolution has taken place in me. I am at one of those moments that decide the existence of a man. Judge, then, how necessary your presence and your advice are to me. But you will not long be wanting, whatever motives you have for remaining in Hungary. Come! Come! I entreat of you, Maximilian, for I stand in need of you to console me, and I cannot go to seek you. My father, whose health is daily declining, has summoned me from Gerolstein. Each day makes so great an alteration in him that it is impossible for me to leave him.
I have so much to say that I shall become tedious, but I must relate to you the most important—the most romantic incident of my life. Why were you not there, my friend? Why were you not there? For three months my heart has been a prey to emotions equally sweet and sorrowful, and I was alone—I was alone. Sympathise with me, you who know the sensibility of my heart, you who have seen my eyes filled with tears at the simple recital of a noble or generous action, at the simple sight of a splendid sunset—of the sky studded with bright stars.
Do you recollect last year, on our excursion to the ruins of Oppenfeld, on the shore of the vast lake, our reveries during that evening, so full of calm, of poesy, and of peace? Strange contrast! It was three days before that bloody duel, in which I would not accept you for my second, for I should have suffered too much for you had I been wounded before your eyes,—the duel in which, for a dispute at play, my second unhappily killed the young Frenchman, the Comte de Saint-Remy.
Apropos, do you know what has become of the dangerous siren whom M. de Saint-Remy brought with him to Oppenfeld, and whose name was, I think, Cecily David?