"How do things go on in the Pavilion?" asked the Sovereign.
"According to the account of the lackey, there have been no visitors from the city, nor any letters; everything as usual in the afternoon. When the strangers were sitting in front of the door, the lady had spoken of a journey to Switzerland, but her husband replied that there could be no thought of it until he had finished his business. Then there had been an uncomfortable silence. In the evening both attended the theatre."
The Sovereign nodded, and dismissed the official. As he sat alone, he pushed his chair against the wall, and listened to the sound of a small bell which, from the further end of the room, was scarcely audible; he hastily opened the door of a niche in the wall, and took out the letters which a confidential secretary had sent up through a tube from the lower story. There were various handwritings: he passed quickly through the contents. At last he held a bundle of children's letters in his hand. Again he laughed. "So the great ball has burst already." His countenance became serious. "A genuine peasant, he has no sense for the honor of having the top-boots of a prince among his fields." He took another letter. "The Hereditary Prince to his sister. It is the first letter of the pious John Patmos, saying nothing, as if it had been written for me. That may possibly be so. The contents are scanty and cold. He expresses the wish that his sister also may pass a pleasant time in the country. We wish the same," he continued, with good humor; "she may pluck flowers and talk with scholars about the virtues of Roman ladies. This wish shall be fulfilled by all parties." He laid the letters back in the niche, and pressed a spring in the floor with his foot; there was a slight rustling in the wall, and the packet glided down.
The Sovereign raised himself from his chair and walked about the room.
"My thoughts hover restlessly about this man. I have received him with complaisance; I have even treated his insane hopes with the greatest consideration, and yet this unpractical dreamer mocks at me. Why did he make this insidious attack on me? He did it with the malicious penetration of a diseased person, who knows better than a sound one what is deficient in another. His prating was half vague reflection and half the silly cunning of a fool who also carries about him a worm in his brain. It does not matter: we know one another, as the Augur knew his colleagues. Between us a family hatred burns, such as can only exist between relations--an enduring, thorough hatred, which conceals itself beneath smiles and polite bows. Trick for trick, my Roman cousin. You seek a manuscript which lies concealed with me, but I something else, which you would withhold from me."
He sank back in his chair, and looked timidly towards the door; then put his hand into a pile of books, and drew out a translation of Tacitus. He tapped the book with his finger.
"He who wrote this was also diseased. He spied incessantly into the souls of his masters; their pictures so filled his fancy, that the Roman people and the millions of other men appeared unimportant to him: he suspected every step of his rulers, yet neither he nor his generation could do without them. He gazed at them as on suns, the eclipse of which he investigated, and which reflected their light on him, the little planet. He began to doubt the wisdom of the order of things; and that to every human mind is the beginning of the end. But he had wit enough to see that his masters became diseased through the miserable meanness of those like himself, and his best policy was that of the old High Steward, to bear all with a silent obeisance."
He opened the leaves.
"Only one, whom he has included in his book," he began again, "was a man, whom it moves one to read about. This was the gloomy majesty of Tiberius: he knew the rabble, and despised them, till the miserable slaves at last placed him among the madmen. Do you know, Professor Tacitus, why the great Emperor became a weak fool? No one knows it--no one on earth but me, and those like me. He went mad because he could not cease to be a man of feeling. He despised many and hated many, and yet he could not do without the childish feeling of loving and trusting. A common youth, who had once shown him personal devotion, caught hold of this fancy of his earthly life, and dragged the powerful mind down with him into the dirt. A miserable weakness of heart converted the stern politician of Imperial Rome into a fool. The weak feelings that rise up in lonely hours are the undoing of us all; indestructible is this longing for a pure heart and a true spirit--undying the seeking after the ideal condition of man, which is described by the poet and believed in by the pedant." He sighed deeply; his head sank on the table between his hands.
There was a slight sound at the door. The Sovereign started. The servant announced--"The Grand Marshal von Bergau." The Grand Marshal entered.