"I ought not to have reduced myself to such a necessity?"
I did not answer.
"Oh, of course! I ought never to have indulged my wishes, but have grown gray in the same dull manner in which I was brought up! Because I once venture a step beyond the drear monotony of my past life, and look around me to see whether there be not some new source of enjoyment in store for me—because I—"
"If it was but a trial, gracious sir, I have no more to say; for the experience you have gained would not be dearly bought at three times the price it has cost. It grieves me, I confess, to think that the opinion of the world should be concerned in determining the question—how are you to choose your own happiness."
"It is well for you that you can afford to despise the world's opinion," replied he, "I am its creature, I must be its slave. What are we princes but opinion? With us it is everything. Public opinion is our nurse and preceptor in infancy, our oracle and idol in riper years, our staff in old age. Take from us what we derive from the opinion of the world, and the poorest of the humblest class is in a better position than we, for his fate has taught him a lesson of philosophy which enables him to bear it. But a prince who laughs at the world's opinion destroys himself, like the priest who denies the existence of a God."
"And yet, gracious prince—"
"I see what you would say; I can break through the circle which my birth has drawn around me. But can I also eradicate from my memory all the false impressions which education and early habit have implanted, and which a hundred thousand fools have been continually laboring to impress more and more firmly? Everybody naturally wishes to be what he is in perfection; in short, the whole aim of a prince's existence is to appear happy. If we cannot be happy after your fashion, is that any reason why we should discard all other means of happiness, and not be happy at all? If we cannot drink of joy pure from the fountain-head, can there be any reason why we should not beguile ourselves with artificial pleasure— nay, even be content to accept a sorry substitute from the very hand that robs us of the higher boon?"
"You were wont to look for this compensation in your own heart."
"But if I no longer find it there? Oh, how came we to fall on this subject? Why did you revive these recollections in me? I had recourse to this tumult of the senses in order to stifle an inward voice which embitters my whole life; in order to lull to rest this inquisitive reason, which, like a sharp sickle, moves to and fro in my brain, at each new research lopping off another branch of my happiness."
"My dearest prince"—He had risen, and was pacing up and down the room in unusual agitation.